


Some Other Light

by jestbee



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Closeted Character, Coming Out, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Petrol Station employees, Sexual harassment in the form of a forced kiss, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2020-12-27 19:03:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21123698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: Dan works the night shift because it's easier to exist in the dark





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ataraxia25](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ataraxia25/gifts).

> Written to a prompt from @ataraxia25 - I'm sorry I went off on a tangent, but I hope you enjoy this fic anyway. Thank you for the lovely prompt, and for bidding on me in the charity auction <3
> 
> This was meant to be a 2k oneshot, but it grew. Updates on Mondays because it's mostly finished anyway.

The playlist has started over which means he has about fifteen minutes left of his shift. He keeps intending to add a few more songs to it so that it runs right up to the moment that someone comes in to relieve him, but so far he hasn't been able to find anything that really captures the feeling of being in the stillness of five in the morning. 

The shop is quiet, the odd car drives past outside, and in the summer months like this the sun is making a valiant effort to come into view, though it won't actually rise for another hour. The sky is a pale grey, the street lights still on, and the forecourt of the petrol station is large, and vacant. If Dan lets his mind wonder, he could believe he was the only person left on the planet. 

The notion that he would finally be free of everything, even just for a while, brings with it a serene moment of calm.

Still, it doesn't make him want to stay here any longer than he has to. 

Dan checks the rota again and looks at the name next to his. _5:30am: Phil_. It's usually Rosie for the early shift, she bustles in with her dirty blonde ponytail and purple glasses and talks from the moment she opens the door. She hangs up her coat, still giving Dan a run down of everything that happened since the previous morning, and never lets him get a word in edgewise. She was talkative when he wanted quiet, and excitable when Dan didn't have enough brain space left to deal with it. 

But Rosie got married last year, and they've been talking about having kids for a while (Dan knows this because she's been telling him ever since), so it wasn't a surprise when she finally announced she was going on mat leave. 

The rota has had this Phil's name on it for a while, but he's usually been on one of the busier shifts in the afternoon, for the post-work crowd when they need two members of staff on. But now his name is on Rosie's shift, the 5:30am start. A difficult shift to hire for, second only to Dan's who works overnight when the place is dead. The petrol station is open twenty-four hours, so someone needs to cover those hours. 

And Dan likes the night time.

At least Dan doesn't have to deal with the shop. He does his business through a small slot in a large window. He takes cash, passes out the card reader, and occasionally has to get up for a packet of crisps. The customers are few and far between. The odd person on an overnight trip, someone coming back from a nightclub, taxi drivers and mini coaches. 

There's the odd young couple too. Sharing the alien midnight hours, travelling roads and breathing in the night air, as if the feeling they get in the lost night hours is really reflective of what it will be like to be together once mundanity sets in. 

It's different, at this time. People are different. The world looks a little less scary with the bustling bodies removed from it, so it can be hard to remember the day. The light. Dan exists in darkness, goes to bed as the world is waking up and thinks nothing of missing it entirely. 

There won't be anything waiting for him in the sunlight but expectations and difficult decisions. Stark clarity on the reality of life that he can easily avoid by confining himself to these liminal hours between days. 

Dan doesn't start the playlist over. He's thankful that his shift means he can play his own music, but that doesn't mean he's going to put the songs he designated for the beginning of his shift on at the end of it. They have to fit the mood, it's a rule of his. 

Dan is happy to sit in the silence for the remainder of his shift, but it does mean that when the back door bangs open, it makes him jump. He hadn't been looking at the security monitors, instead he'd been scrolling down Reddit's front page and wondering if he should go on nosleep again. The last time he'd read that he'd scared himself stupid with things he knew didn't really exist, but he always was a glutton for punishment. 

"Hello?" Dan says. 

It strikes him that it's a bit ridiculous to greet a potential intruder, embarrassment factor aside it gives away his location when he otherwise would have gotten a chance to hide away. As it is, Dan is a sitting duck. 

"Er, Hi?" a voice calls back. 

It doesn't sound like an axe murderer, but then, what do axe murderers even sound like? 

There is nothing around him that Dan can use to defend himself. He scrambles for a moment before his eyes land on the display of selfie sticks on the other side of the counter, and the one out of its box for demonstrative purposes. He takes it, extends it, and holds it out before him. The thing is flimsy as hell, and will no doubt bend if he actually tries to use it as a weapon, but it makes him feel better to have it in his hand. 

Footsteps approach in the silence. Behind him, a car goes past with a rush of noise and the headlights illuminate the shop, throwing shadows against the walls in jagged shapes. Around the corner to the back office, which lays empty save for the coat stand where Dan has hung his jacket, a man appears. 

Dan yells in surprise, raising the selfie stick above his head. The man yells back, startled so hard that he stumbles back into the door frame, shoulder slamming into the unyielding wood. 

"Ah!" he says, "Ouch!" 

"Ah!" Dan replies, "Who are you?" 

The guy is about Dan's age, if not a little older. He's got dark hair, way too dark to be natural, and so much of it. It's messy in a way that suggests he hasn't styled it in the slightest save for the fringe which lies flat across his forehead the way Dan's never will. He's wearing the polo shirt uniform for the petrol station, with a pair of black skinny jeans not unlike Dan's own. 

He's pale, with high cheekbones and arched eyebrows under all that hair and the bluest eyes Dan has ever seen. He's tall, and slender, but his shoulders are broad, and a large hand is now rubbing at his injured shoulder with really quite delicate movements and— 

This is really not the time for all of that. 

"I'm Phil," the guy says, "sorry. Today's my first time on this shift." 

Dan lowers the selfie stick to his side and runs his other hand over his face, "of course you are." 

"Were you going to attack me with a selfie stick?" Phil asks. 

He's recovered from his minor injury now. He's got one hand in his pocket normally and the other turned almost backwards so that his fingers are in his pocket, but the inside of his wrist is bent out at the weirdest angle. Dan looks at it a second too long and Phil seems to notice, ripping his hand out and returning it to a more acceptable position. 

"I thought you were a psychotic killer," Dan says. 

He's unplugging his phone from the overhead audio system. There are earphones in his pocket for the walk home, and he has a whole other playlist for that. 

"And… you were going to attack me with a selfie stick?" Phil repeats. 

He laughs, his mouth way too wide, all of his teeth on show. His pink tongue appears at the corner of his mouth and Phil brings a hand up to cover it as though it's something he's self conscious about. 

Cute, Dan thinks, before he has time to stop himself. 

Dan shrugs. He plugs the end of his headphones into his phone and pushes one of the buds into his left ear. 

"For the record, we usually use the front door at this time, rather than the staff door. You know, so we don't shit each other up." 

"Noted," Phil says. 

He's still smiling. He's one of those cheerful people, even at five in the morning. 

"I haven't got anything to hand over," Dan says. "You've not worked the hatch before have you? Are you alright with how it works?" 

It isn't that Dan particularly wants to show him, or to stay here any longer than he has to, but the last thing he wants is his manager ringing him in a few hours when he's barely been able to get to sleep, to give him shit about not giving the new guy the information he needed. 

"Jean showed me," Phil says. 

Jean has worked the hatch before, so Dan's fairly confident he isn't going to fuck it up. 

"Doors open at seven thirty," Dan says. "Mick should come to relieve you at eleven, there's no delivery to stack tonight but usually you can do that if you get really bored—" 

"I know," Phil says. 

Phil walks into the tiny, cramped area behind the counter and pushes past Dan. He sits down on the chair and presses the button on the till that signs Dan out and lets him punch in his employee code. 

"Sorry," Dan says, "I didn't mean that you didn't know, I just…" 

"It's fine," Phil says, with another one of those smiles, "But, I've got it." 

Phil flicks his hair out of his eyes with a sharp jerk of his head and starts humming music under his breath. It's Dan's cue to leave, he's finished the part of the conversation he was obligated to have, which means he's released to the freedom of the day - or at least the part of it he's going to see before he falls into his bed - but for some reason he doesn't leave. 

"What's that?" Dan asks. 

"Huh?" 

"The song, you were humming." 

"Oh. It's from Final Fantasy. Sorry, I've got it stuck in my head for some reason." 

"It's from seven, right?" 

Phil turns back to look at him and his eyes give Dan a once over that makes him feel scrutinised. It is as if Phil has decided that remark makes Dan worthy of a second opinion, a further appraisal to see whether he might move beyond Phil's initial assessment. 

"Yes," Phil says, "seven." 

"Cool," Dan says, and then taps his foot on the floor, runs a hand through his hair, and then waves awkwardly with two fingers. "Seeya, then." 

"Bye, um…?" 

"Dan." 

Phil smiles again and Dan wishes he knew what he had to smile about.

"Bye Dan." 

His walk home takes about ten minutes if he moves quickly. He tries to do it at a pace that matches the thumping rhythm of the music in his ears. He used to have a slower playlist, a wind down from his shift, melodic and lilting with emotional lyrics, but he found that by the time he got home be was shrouded in melancholy and getting to sleep with all of that built up inside him was difficult. So he switched to hard, angry songs that quicken his pace, light a fire in his stomach. 

Sometimes Dan thinks he can only experience certain emotions if they're put there by music, or at least, he can't understand them until they have a soundtrack. 

The house is quiet when he gets in. He has to go in through the back door because the front door opens onto the front reception room which has been converted into a bedroom he doesn't sleep in. The galley kitchen is a mess with unwashed crockery the way it usually is, and as he turns into the tiny living room that was probably intended to be a dining room, there's an upended beer bottle dripping it's remnants onto the brown, flat carpet and an empty pizza box on the coffee table. More beer bottles are stacked into a pyramid beneath the window and Dan knows from experience that he shouldn't expect it to be cleared up any time soon. 

Another party then. Another gathering of the housemates he lives with because they took him in during his first year and are stuck with him now he's dropped out. 

Dan's bedroom is on the second floor. He creeps up the creaky staircase, so narrow that his shoulders brush against the walls either side, and so steep that he has to concentrate on not losing his balance. The middle landing has the shared bathroom and the door opens as he moves past it. 

Aaron emerges onto the landing. It's dark, and there are no windows, but the light from the bathroom floods the space between them before the door shuts behind him. He's shirtless, wearing checked blue pyjama bottoms and bare feet, his hair is a riotous mess of warm blonde grown out too long and his jaw is covered with thick stubble. The scratchy kind, Dan remembers. 

"Oh," Aaron says. 

They try not to meet like this. They've been fairly successful for a while. 

"Hi," Dan says. 

Aaron moves past him, having to go around to get to his bedroom door at the top of the stairs. The room beyond is dark, the glow of the purple light on the side of his PC lighting up one wall and the stack of books beside it on the desk. 

Dan steps lightly out of his way, avoiding him and the way his eyes dart sharply to look anywhere other than at Dan as he passes. 

"Charming," Dan says, under his breath. 

Aaron must hear, because he turns back to Dan, thick brows pulled down low over light brown-green eyes. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Nothing," Dan insists. 

Their voices are hushed, but nevertheless heated. They don't want to wake the house. 

Aaron takes a step back out of his bedroom and stalks over the short distance towards Dan. Dan steps out of his space, pushing himself up against the wall next to the bathroom door, and Aaron steps right into his space. He raises a hand as if to shove at Dan, but stops at the last minute, dropping it back to his side. 

Dan flinches anyway.

They are nose to nose, the heat of Aaron's bare chest radiating onto him, his sneer visible up close. 

"I don't need your shit, Howell," he says. 

"I didn't give you any," Dan points out, even though it's pointless. 

Aaron's eyes flick down to Dan's mouth and he breathes hot and humid across Dan's cheek. His hand flexes at his side and Dan remembers what he looks like under the glow of that purple light, how it picks out the lightest highlights in his hair, contrasts with the darker hues in his eyes. He recalls how his hair fans out on a pillow, how the imprint of his teeth stays on his bottom lip when he bites down on it. 

"Babe?" a quiet, higher pitched voice says from behind them, and Cassidy appears at the doorway to Aaron's room, rather than at the other one across the hall where she usually sleeps. She's wearing a long t-shirt that Dan recognises as one of Aaron's. He's not sure when that happened, he's been out of the loop for a while. 

"Oh," she says, "hi Dan. Did you just get in?" 

Aaron has retreated out of his space. So quick that Dan missed it, except that he feels cold all down his front now that he isn't so close. 

"Yeah," Dan says. A headphone has fallen out of his ear and it lays over his shoulder, swinging softly, music still emanating from it. The beat is fast, hard, matching his heartbeat. "I'm going to bed now. Goodnight." 

The grey of the day is lighter on the second staircase, coming in through the velux window at the top. It splits off into two bedrooms up here, Thea is in the other one and Dan wants to knock on her door and crawl into bed with her for one of her no-nonsense hugs. She wraps her long arms around his body so tightly sometimes that he doesn't feel a foot taller than her tiny frame. It isn't that she's stronger than him, he's seen her break down numerous times, but she seems to take on other people's issues better than she does her own. 

Dan wishes he could do the same for her. 

She has this way of looking at him like she knows all the things he isn't telling anyone, but she never asks for more than he wants to give. If he did knock on her door right now, she'd tell him to fuck off for five minutes, because it's too goddamn early, but she'd let him sleep on the other side of her three-quarter sized bed and only grumble a little bit about how he took up too much space. 

She'd put her bright red hair under his chin, and her head on his chest, and Dan would breathe in the scent of her shampoo and convince himself that he isn't alone for a little bit. But Dan doesn't knock, he opens the door to his own, sad room with a crack in the ceiling and a bare lightbulb without a shade. 

He collapses down onto his wrinkled, worn bedding and wrestles out of his uniform until he's in nothing but his boxers. It's stuffy in here, getting warmer as the sun rises on another day he's happy to sleep through. He cracks his window, making sure the shades are still drawn but the breeze can come in.

He starfishes against the mattress and thinks about Aaron's eyes in the dim light of the hallway, how his mouth had sneered with the kind of hatred Dan fears because it usually comes with so much more than a simple crowding against a wall. Then he starts thinking of other things, purple lights and someone shushing him, telling him to keep his voice down. 

It's a memory he's only mostly sure is real. 

Dan plugs his phone in with the frayed cord next to his bed. His earphones are still in the jack so he presses them into his ears, blocking out the sound of the day waking up beyond his curtains. The playlist he puts on is filled with the kind of music that reminds of being young, of belonging to a group of people long before he had to find somewhere different. 

It sounds like hundreds of miles away and a million years ago. 

He lays the phone next to him on the pillow, letting music fill the space on the other side where no one has ever been.


	2. Chapter Two

Thea wakes him hours later with a sour expression and a pair of sunglasses on inside. She's been out of the house even with her hangover because she's brought him a cup of coffee emblazoned with the logo of the cafe on the way back from the university. Dan doesn't go there anymore, but he misses the coffee. 

She wriggles into the spot on the other side of his mattress and disturbs the one remaining earphone still in his ear. He taps so that the music stops, it's played right through the entire time he's been asleep. 

"You at work tonight?" she asks. 

"You know I am." 

Thea drops her head down on the bottom of his bed and stretches her legs vertically up the wall behind his head. He's got fairy lights taped in a circle in the middle of the wall that she'd helped him put there. A circle made of tiny dots of white light. In the middle, a few pictures are taped up against the painted plaster. There used to be more, but he stopped kidding himself about that a while back. 

Now there is one of him with his grandma, at Christmas, and a selfie Thea insisted he take with her. There's one of all of them in first year too, crowded into frame, faces pressed together. Thea, Cassidy, Dan, their other housemate Justin who is a law unto himself and only appears at odd intervals, and then Aaron. Aaron is in the middle, face shiny with drink and dancing, his hair shorter and his stubble much more tame than it is these days. He looks younger, less hidden behind anger. 

Or maybe Dan just didn't know him well enough to see what was always there. 

Dan is in the corner of the frame, squashed in like he's an add-on to the group. They were all friends first, living in the flat below Dan's in halls, but for some reason they decided that Dan should tag along with them and Dan had been so starved for any kind of connection that he'd gone along with it. 

It's a cycle he's been repeating for a while. 

Thank God for Thea, she's the only one that he feels he's ever had a real conversation with. She's currently looking at him upside down. 

"I wanted to go watch that new Ryan Reynolds movie." 

"Which one?" 

"The body swap one, it's supposed to be funny." 

"I dunno if that's really my kind of thing," Dan points out.

"But Ryan Reynolds," Thea says, lifting her sunglasses into her hair so she can waggle her eyebrows at him, "I don't think I care what the plot is, do you?" 

She laughs, and Dan feels the familiar spike of fear in the bottom of his stomach. Thea acts like she knows things that she doesn't know, that Dan isn't sure he wants her to know. 

When he doesn't join in, she rolls her eyes at him and bumps her fist against his thigh. 

"Lighten up, Daniel," she says,"even Aaron would say Ryan Reynolds is good looking." 

Dan runs his tongue over his teeth, a sour taste in his mouth that has nothing to do with sleep or the coffee. 

"Well, I'm at work," he says, "so I can't go." 

"You're always at work. Are you ever going to have time to have fun again?" 

"I have fun," Dan says. "And I get one night a week off work." 

"Which you spend playing video games inside," Thea points out. 

Dan shrugs, and hides his face behind his coffee cup. 

"Did I hear a commotion downstairs when you came home this morning?" Thea asks. 

She's taken her shoes off and her painted blue toenails contrast against the off-white of his walls. She taps her feet in an uneven, staccato rhythm that reminds Dan of the intro to a song he can't quite bring to mind. 

"No," Dan lies. 

Thea turns her head so that her cheek is pressed against his knee, and closes her eyes like she might sleep. 

"I'm knackered," she says. "I suppose you're ready to get up and face the day. Or, what's left of it." 

Dan rearranges the duvet over himself, tucking it under his hip on one side. 

"I can stay for a bit," he says. "I don't have anything to do before work.

"Alright," she nods, "just for a bit."

* * *

Dan's shift is the same as it always is. Quiet, boring, just the way he likes it. His playlist plays through and he hums along, drumming his fingers on the desk to the faster parts. He sings along in places too, but he keeps an eye on the security monitors when he does just in case someone might appear that could overhear him. 

The music runs out before the end again, but this time Dan spots Phil walking across the forecourt on the security monitor, heading towards the front door, so he doesn't have to sit in silence for long. 

"You're early," Dan says, pushing the button to unlock the door so Phil can come in. 

"Problem?" Phil asks. 

Phil leans on the counter. His hair is even more of a mess today, his eyes are still impossibly blue, and he has a rainbow pin fixed to the lapel of his jacket. 

Dan swallows, and turns his attention to the till. 

"No problem," Dan says, "It's cool with me if you want to start work before you have to." 

"I just misjudge the distance," Phil says, "I'm not used to how long it takes me to get here yet." 

"Where abouts are you?" 

Phil tells Dan that he lives in a block of flats on the other side of the city, down by the train station. 

"Long way," Dan says, "I'm only about ten minutes away." 

"There's a bus," Phil says. 

Dan nods, and the silence stretches out around them before Phil gives up waiting for a reply and goes to take his jacket off and hang it up in the back. 

"Delivery arrived about a half hour ago," Dan tells him when he comes back behind the counter. 

"Alright." 

"You don't have to stack it, but it beats sitting here with nothing to do." 

"And I can build a box fort," Phil says. His face is completely stoic, voice dedpan. 

"What?" 

"A box fort," Phil says. "Like, a fort. Made out of boxes." 

"Um, alright. Not sure that's… I mean, whatever." 

"Oh come on," Phil says. He finally cracks out one of those smiles from last time. He smiles more than anyone else Dan has ever met, but he has the face for it. Smiling makes his mouth look nice, he's got a nice top lip, his cupid's bow is really defined and the whole thing is sort of permanently pulled into a lob-sided smirk. 

"What?" Dan asks, forcing himself to look anywhere else. 

"You've never built a box fort?" 

"Not... " Dan shrugs, and he presses the button on the till to sign himself out, "not at work, no." 

The reality is that Dan has never built a box fort. He's never been in a position to build one, or had anyone that would want to build one with him. 

"Beats sitting here with nothing to do," Phil repeats back to him. 

Dan gets off the stool and shrinks back against the cigarette display so that Phil can pass him and take his place. 

"You're kind of weird," Phil says. 

"I beg your pardon?" 

Dan doesn't mind the implication that he's weird. He is, by all the standards he's come across, he's loud and opinionated and he sticks out in a way that he wishes he didn't. He's too tall and he's never been comfortable with the way that his body moves, or the space that he takes up, but he does resent Phil just blurting it out like that. Seems a bit mean. 

"I don't mean it in a bad way," Phil insists, "I just mean… I don't know. I like it." 

"You… like it?" 

Dan is still pushing his back again the cigarette shelving, one of them bites into the skin between his shoulder blades through the thin barrier of his polo shirt. 

"Yeah," Phil says, "I'm a bit weird too." 

Dan isn't sure how comfortable he is with Phil drawing comparisons between them, but his blue eyes are dancing with yet another smile, and this one is catching. 

"You are," Dan tells him, pulling away from the shelves. "Makes a change." 

"What does?" 

"Oh just… having someone around here that's not… like the others." 

"You don't get on with the others?" 

"Do I get on with you?" Dan challenges. 

It's one of those moments where his mouth works before his brain. He tries to rein in his sarcasm on a normal basis, but something about Phil's open expression and contagious smiles has him forgetting himself. 

"I hope so," Phil says, "not many other people I know could catch a song from seven just from my awful humming. It's kind of refreshing." 

Dan's mouth works for something to say but he can't find anything that feels appropriate for how warm that makes him feel in the middle of his chest. And squirmy down in his stomach. 

"I have a good feeling that we could be friends," Phil says. 

"Is that right?" 

"Yeah." Phil logs himself into the till and nods decisively. 

"Do I have a say in this?" Dan asks. 

"Nope. I've decided my new quest is to make you my friend." 

"Well…" Dan laughs, despite himself, because Phil is ridiculous. "Good to know." 

"Everyone has to have a friend at work," Phil says, "and you don't get on with the others." 

"But you do," Dan points out. 

Phil glances back over his shoulder and he raises an eyebrow. The action twists up that thing inside Dan's head that he tries to avoid. Please no, he thinks, this really isn't the time for this. 

"Do I?" Phil asks. 

His words are slow, deliberate, packed with meaning that Dan doesn't have time to get to the bottom of. Instead, he just lets it roll over him in favour of getting out of here as soon as possible before hidden things rear their ugly heads. 

"Good luck with your quest," Dan says, moving out from behind the counter and making his way to the back room to fetch his coat. "I'm not easy to get along with." 

"I think you're great," Phil says, and Dan wonders what information Phil is using to make that assessment. 

Surely there has to be more to it than an appreciation for video game soundtracks and Phil's soft smiles.

* * *

When Dan goes home, Thea is already laying on the other side of his bed. 

"Move over," he says, into the dark. 

"Hmfph," she grumbles, but she does roll further towards the edge so that Dan can flop down in the space beside her.

He's stripped out of his uniform, and the window is open and a breeze is flowing into the room, cutting through the stuffy, close feeling. 

"Why are you here?" Dan asks. 

"Thought I'd wait for you," she says, "but I fell asleep. You work stupid hours." 

"Yeah," Dan agrees. 

"Did you have a good shift?" 

Dan thinks about Phil, with his messy hair and ever-smirking mouth, he thinks of rainbow pins and familiar songs hummed under his breath. He pictures long fingers punching buttons on the till and the way his uniform shirt is a touch too big over the curve of his waist, but clings to the broad jut of his shoulders. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to shove it back down into the dark recesses of his brain, to the place he tries not to go. 

"It was fine," he says.


	3. Chapter Three

Cassidy and Aaron are eating dinner on the couch when Dan swings through on his way to work. He hadn't been expecting it, because no one really cooks in this house, so it stops him in his tracks. He's got one earphone in his ear and the other in his hand on the way to the other side. 

"Dan," Cassidy says, pleased to see him. 

She's wearing a pair of denim shorts and a strap top, legs folded up on the couch and her plate balanced on a bare knee. Her hair is scooped up off her neck, held in place with a black scrunchie. She has a shocking amount of skin on display, and if Dan were a different type of person, he might be inclined to look at that for a lot longer that he actually manages. 

It has been hot today, Dan felt it in the temperature of his room, so her outfit choice makes sense. Besides, Dan isn't about to shame anyone for dressing exactly how they want to - societal bullshit be damned. It's just that it makes him feel weird, it points out to him all the ways he's different from the other blokes he knows, Justin would look, and Aaron clearly appreciates it, if the way his arm is draped over her shoulders is anything to go by.

But all Dan sees is the girl that sat with him in first year while he tried to study for exams he didn't want to take, who smiled at him when she found out he'd dropped out and told him he should stay living here anyway as long as he got a job. She's a person to him, and while that doesn't preclude him also enjoying the way she looks, he just… can't. However hard he tries to make himself. 

And he stopped trying to force that a while ago. It didn't work out so well in the past.

Phil might not look either, Dan reasons, but he can't be sure of that, can he? 

"It feels like ages since I saw you," she says. 

"Yeah, sorry. I've been busy, I guess." 

He risks a look in Aaron's direction, but Aaron just runs his fingers up the side of Cassidy's neck. She giggles, and Aaron avoids looking at Dan at all. 

"We should make time to hang out," she says. 

"Yeah…" He tracks the path of Aaron's fingers across her skin and tries not to think about how they felt on his. "We should… we should do that." 

Cassidy doesn't notice the way Aaron avoids talking to him, and part of Dan is grateful because he doesn't want to explain why things are so awkward between them. Dan spares her a few minutes of chit chat and promises that he'll try to be around a bit more even if he has no intention of doing that, and then he finally, mercifully, gets to go to work. 

The walk takes ten minutes like it always does, but he barely registers it. His feet thud on the inky black pavements, striding through strips of orange light from the streetlamps and thinking about the touch of Aaron's fingers to Cassidy's neck over and over. 

He feels sick. A tight, churned up feeling pools in the pit of his stomach and in his mind's eye the orange light turns to purple, he tips backwards onto Aaron's bed over and over and he has to squeeze his eyes shut and pause outside of a closed down bookies to try and get a handle on it all. 

He breathes, counting in and out in the way that he'd read online, and night air rushes into his lungs, colder than it's been all day, and washes him clean. 

He's only around the corner from work, now. Back to his tiny box and the slot in the window, to the cloying boredom and routine of it all. It is better than the alternative, which is to stay out here and think about things, or worse yet to spend time in the daylight where people expect more from him that simply fulfilling his duties and nothing more. 

The petrol station settles around him during his shift. It's quiet save for his playlist, and he's almost all the way to the end of it when movement on the security monitor draws his attention. He sits up straighter, thinking that some  
one must be walking onto the forecourt to ask directions, or possibly just to hassle him through the glass. It wouldn't be the first time. 

But he's greeted by the sight of messy black hair and a uniform that matches his own. He pushes the button on the desk that opens the door and Phil walks into his little bubble of quiet. 

"This is Muse," is the first thing he says. 

Dan doesn't have to switch his attention to the sound system to know whereabouts in the playlist they are. 

"Yes," he says. 

"Origin was the best album," Phil announces. 

He's got the same jacket on again. The black one with too many pockets and the rainbow pin on the lapel. 

"Well, yes," he says. 

Dan should attempt to find some other words to say, rather than just agreeing, but once again their musical tastes are lining up and Dan doesn't know what to do with that. It hasn't happened for a while. Or, it might have, but not so that anyone has gone out of their way to tell him. 

"I… um, I like the lyrics to this one," Dan tries. It seems like a perfectly normal thing to say, and a safe subject to stick to. 

Better than the thing he wants to say which is that Phil is wearing glasses today and the dark rims look amazing against the smooth, pale of his skin and the shock of his black hair. The whole thing lends a rather lovely framing to his sharp features, but Dan wouldn't know how to tell him that without sounding like a complete head case. 

"I'm not much for the lyrics," Phil says, "I prefer instrumental music usually, but Muse is an exception. I mostly like the sound of it though." 

"Like the seven soundtrack," Dan says. 

"Mm hm," Phil nods. 

He comes straight in and around the counter. He doesn't bother taking his jacket off, just pulls up one of the steps they use to reach the higher shelves when stacking and sits down on it in the cramped space. He's right next to Dan's chair, and Dan is sat higher, looking down at him as Phil rests his elbow on the desk and flops his head down on his arm. 

"I'm really tired today. I had to help my housemate move furniture." 

"Why are you here so early, then?" Dan asks. "You've got like half an hour until your shift starts." 

"It's part of my quest," Phil says, "keeping you company." 

"What makes you think I need company?" 

Phil lifts his head. His beautiful blue eyes blink behind his glasses and Dan's cheeks go hot. He looks back at the security monitors under the guise of doing his job. 

"It gets lonely here," Phil says, "don't you think?" 

"I dunno," Dan shrugs, "I like the quiet." 

"Should I go?" 

Dan looks back and Phil is chewing on the corner of this thumb nail. 

"No," Dan says, "you can stay." 

"Good," Phil says, sliding a hand into one of the many pockets on his jacket. The rainbow pin glitters under the strip lighting. He draws out a thick rectangle and holds it aloft, "You know how to play Gin?"

* * *

The playlist ended a while ago. Phil had looked up from squinting at the cards in his hand and then down at the discard pile, and commented on how quiet it was. Dan reached over and started the playlist from the beginning, he didn't think about it too much. It is, technically, not the way he enjoys listening to music, but he can't argue with how good it feels to sit here with Phil, playing cards and keeping score on the back of a till roll. 

He gets up a couple of times to serve customers. One for petrol, the other for a twenty deck of Lamberts, before settling back into his seat. 

"I think it's technically my shift now," Phil says. 

"Right," Dan nods. He's got three kings in his hand, and three sevens. He's one card away from winning, even though he's been winning most of the hands, so he doesn't want to leave just yet. 

Phil places his fan of cards upside down on the desk and stands up from his shorter seat, stretching his arms over his head. He'd taken his jacket off a while ago, and his shirt rides up to reveal a pale stretch of skin above his belt. Dan clears his throat and concentrates on his cards. 

"Come on," Phil says, "I get the good seat now." 

Dan goes willingly. He slides out of the high stool at the window, and places himself down on the short step. He keeps his cards with him, and doesn't even sneak a look at Phil's while he's distracted by logging into the till. 

"My turn?" says Dan once Phil turns back to him. 

"Yeah." 

Dan loses count of how many hands they play. They are keeping score, and he's winning - by a small amount - so he could work it out if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to. The hour has come where Phil has to open the shop door and close up the hatch, and customers are starting to trickle in with more frequency. 

Dan's eyes feel like gravel behind his lids, sandy and dry, aching every time he blinks. He should have been in bed hours ago. 

The cards fall to the wayside as Phil serves customers, puts their petrol through the till, pushes the button to turn on the pumps as they pull up. He's cordial, and jokey. He greets every one of them with a wide smile and tells them all to have a great day. 

Dan laughs at him and asks if he's American, and Phil tell him that customer service is severely lacking in this country. Dan launches into an explanation about minimum wage and its effect on the service industry. He details how the reliance on tipping in the US is due to the infrequency of jobs that meet the living wage, how in Britain tipping culture isn't as prevalent and so there isn't as much of a drive towards favourable interactions for the sake of monetary reward.

Phil listens to all of it and nods along. 

"Sorry," Dan says, realising he's been talking for five solid minutes and Phil hasn't been able to say a word. 

"No, don't be," Phil says, "it's really interesting." 

Dan wants to argue with him some more and apologise for monopolising his shift with his boring monologuing but before he can get the words out they are interrupted by a loud, long yawn. 

"Tired?" Phil says. 

Dan blinks slowly, eyes still aching, and realises they have talked nearly the entire way through Phil's shift. The playlist has almost come to an end for the second time. 

"Yeah," Dan says, "you?" 

Phil has been quiet and wavering for a while. Dan had to reach over and correct the last set of buttons he pressed on the till, and he's been yawning in between sentences. 

"Yeah," Phil says. 

"Mate, if moving furniture does this to you, you should probably get more exercise." 

Phil folds his arms on the desk and drops his head down on top of them, "it wasn't just the furniture," Phil says, "I stayed up too long playing computer games as well. Not a smart move on my part." 

"What game?" Dan says. 

"Bubble bobble?" 

When Dan doesn't show any signs of recognition, Phil continues. 

"It's this old arcade game I used to play with my brother. You can't save your progress, and you only get a few lives, so you just have to keep playing if you're on a roll. My adventurous heart wouldn't let me turn it off before I had to." 

"You do like a quest," Dan says, before he's thought it through. 

"I do," Phil says, grinning up from the circle of his arms. 

"Did you win?" Dan asks. 

"Yeah," Phil nods, "I got to level one hundred. But… I failed at the last boss." 

"Oh," Dan says, "that sucks, sorry." 

"It's alright. There's always next time." 

Another customer pulls up to a pump, and Dan leans over to push the button to turn it on. 

"What about my other quest," Phil asks, "how's that going?" 

Phil has sat back up from where he'd been laying down and it puts Dan right in his personal space where he's leaned over for the button. 

"Um—" he says, stupidly, caught off guard by having those blue eyes up this close. They aren't just blue, they're green and yellow and blue all swirled together so that they look somewhat like a Van Gogh painting in pastel colours. He's tired, he always gets way too pretentiously poetic when he's tired, but he can't help but think that in this case, the hyperbole is called for. His stomach flips over, and the door creaks open on that place in his head again, the one he thought was firmly locked. "It's going great."

"Good," Phil says, another yawn ripping through him. 

The door chimes behind them signalling someone coming in, and Dan expects it to be the customer, he's somewhat surprised when he turns around to find Mike there. 

"Daniel," Mike says, "didn't your shift end a while ago?" 

"Er, yeah," Dan says, hopping up from the stool and hastily drawing all of the discarded playing cards into a pile. For some reason he doesn't want Mike to see. "I was just keeping Phil company." 

Mike looks over at Phil, who gives him a friendly wave but is unable to muster up a cheery greeting with how tired he is. 

"Well, alright." 

Mike goes to take his coat off and Phil serves the last customer and then they are out on the street, blinking the morning sunshine. Dan hasn't seen this part of the day in so long that he's forgotten how bleached and alien everything could look. 

"Which way are you going?" Phil asks. 

Dan points down the road in the direction of his house, and Phil nods, falling into step with him. Dan has his headphones around his neck, laying dormant against his shoulders. He doesn't put one in, doesn't click play on his going home playlist, just walks along next to Phil and takes deep lungfuls of morning air in the hope that it will keep him awake long enough to climb the stairs at home. 

"It still feels weird to start my day that early," Phil says. "I used to be only getting up at this time in my old life." 

"Your old life?" Dan asks. 

"Uni," Phil says, "before I had to move back here with my parents." 

"You live with your parents?" Dan asks, "How old are you?" 

"Rude," Phil laughs. It's a weak laugh, and Dan can hear how tired he is, but it's there. "Not anymore, I moved in with some friends after I got this job. Thank goodness. I do like my parents, but it's difficult to keep living with them when you're older. And, I'm twenty four." 

"I couldn't usually be up at this time either," Dan points out, "but I did sometimes stay up all night in my old life so I suppose nothing really changed." 

"Old life?" Phil directs back at him. 

Dan shakes his head, "uni, before that, I don't know. Before now." 

"You went to uni?" 

"For a year," Dan says. A car drives past a bit too quickly and Dan feels dizzy with exhaustion. "Not anymore."

Phil slows as they walk past a bus stop. He puts his hands in his pockets and the rainbow pin shifts, the edge of it reflecting the morning onto Phil's jaw as a glint of gold.

"I missed one," Phil says, checking the timetable.

"How long until the next one?" 

"About twenty minutes." 

Phil's hair is inky black in the bright sunshine. It's glossy as Phil moves it out of his eyes with clumsy fingers, revealing a lighter stripe at his roots where it's growing out. It's a mousey brown, for the most part, but the vivid daytime picks out shades of warmth intermingled with it. 

Dan bites down on the side of his cheek, and Phil waits for him to say something with a confused expression. 

He doesn't know why the thought occurs to him, it's almost definitely one of those things that he shouldn't allow himself to even think about. But Phil hitches his backpack further up his shoulder, the one he'd packed playing cards into for the sole purpose of spending time with Dan. 

For his quest. 

Possibly Dan is about to ruin all of it, but the pull in his stomach is so strong, the urge to do it clouding everything else. 

This is why he lets soundtracks pick his mood. Impulsivity has always been his most dangerous trait.

"Come back to mine," he says. 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah," Dan repeats. "You can sleep for a bit and then go home later. I don't have work tonight."

"Me either," Phil says, "I mean… tomorrow. God, what day is it?" 

"Friday," Dan says. 

He usually gets a day off mid week, but he had worked through last week and ended up with Friday this week instead. He can only imagine what Friday night in a house full of students in summer break is going to bring. 

He hopes he can just hide with his Xbox and avoid whatever it is. 

"Are you sure?" Phil asks. The edges of his eyes are pink, the collar on his jacket is askew and Dan wants to reach out and smooth it down. 

"I am," Dan says. "If you want." 

"Alright," Phil says. "Lead the way."


	4. Chapter Four

Maybe Dan meant more than sleeping when he initially asked, maybe he didn't. They drag their feet up the two flights of stairs and Dan has a moment of panicked shame at Phil seeing his bedroom and its sparse arrangement. Thea isn't in his room this time, and he thanks whoever is listening for that. What would he even say to explain the almost-stranger he has brought home with him. 

Dan asks Phil to wait here while he just nips to the bathroom to change into his pyjamas. He does it quickly, fully expecting Phil to be in bed already when he returns but Phil is just standing there, locking eyes with him from the other side of Dan's bed. He's still in his jacket, bag at his feet, and his eyes look droopy and slow.

Dan yawns, pulling back the duvet.

"I'm tired," he says.

"I am too," Phil says, "it's okay."

It is okay, and it isn't. There is an itch under Dan's skin warring with his exhaustion, a constant question about what might be allowed to happen if either of them had the energy. 

Purple lights, a head spinning with a bit too much to drink, Dan tips himself onto his own mattress instead of following that painful memory down onto a different one. 

Phil hesitates for a moment, lost in the sea of Dan's flat, brown carpet. 

"You don't have to get in," Dan says, "or you can, and I can get out."

Phil smiles one of those smiles, and snorts noisily in a way that shouldn't be attractive. Dan finds himself breaking into a smile of his own as Phil shrugs out of his jacket. 

Phil doesn't go to the bathroom to get changed. Dan opens his mouth to offer to lend him something to wear but Phil is already undoing the buttons on his fly and shucks his jeans in one smooth motion. He has a light dusting of hair all over his legs, and there are somewhat defined muscles in the shape of his thighs. He's wearing black boxers, tight around his legs at the hem, and that is as far as Dan gets before he has to look away.

There is a deep part of Dan that feels as if he has known Phil for a lot longer than he has. Not so much that the sight of him in his underwear isn't sensationally jarring, but enough that when he pulls back the sheets on the other side of his bed, now showing that he also has a patch of hair in the centre of his chest, it doesn't feel as weird as it should. 

Dan still wants to run his fingers through it all the same. 

Dan has always been liable to imagine these connections too fast, to trust where he shouldn't, because his instinct is to hold on too tight to the good things that come along lest they slip away. In his experience, things have a tendency to fade out from between his fingers, no matter how hard he grips. Or else, he comes on too strong, or in the wrong way. 

He makes bad decisions, he's selfish in his actions and in his expectations. Purple lights dance behind his eyes and he squeezes them shut to block it out.

Phil slips into the bed and Dan shivers with the gust of cool air he brings with him, and the heat of his body mere inches across the mattress.

"I feel like this is an important milestone in my quest," Phil says. 

He's laying on his back, staring up at the crack in Dan's ceiling. The shades are drawn, so that the room is as dark as he can make it, but Dan lifts an arm to flick the fairy lights on. A white, dotted circle glows from the wall above their heads, picking out the edges of Phil's profile. 

"I think we're probably friends now," Dan says, quietly. 

"You know," Phil starts, pausing to rearrange himself. 

He rolls onto his side. He isn't graceful about it, and the mattress dips and shakes as he does. Dan braces himself and tries not to roll towards Phil any more than he has to. He doesn't know what will happen if he touches him, it both scares and thrills him to the point of nervous shivers.

"People usually sound happier to have gained a friend." 

"I'm happy," Dan insists, but even he can tell he doesn't sound like he is. "Congratulations, quest complete. What are you going to do to celebrate?" 

Phil presses his lips together. His face is half buried in Dan's pillow, his hair rucked up on one side, fringe pushed back off his forehead. He's got a nice forehead, all smooth and pale. Dan wants to stroke a finger across it gently, trace the curve of an eyebrow. He wants to— 

He clenches a hand against his duvet and turns his attention back to the ceiling. 

"There's a party," Phil suggests. 

"They're throwing you a party for completing your quest?" Dan jokes, "what an attention whore." 

Maybe it's a step too far. Dan is never sure where the lines are drawn with his kind of humour, the kind that sounds like it's too mean or too dark to be normal, but if Phil truly wants to be his friend, this is the kind of thing he's going to have to put up with. 

"It's not for me, stupid." 

Phil pulls a face at him, and sinks the end of a pointed finger into Dan's cheek. His skin tingles and Dan knows he's probably going red and is suddenly very thankful for the dim, ambient lighting. 

"What's it for, then?"

"Dunno," Phil shrugs, disrupting the covers. "For Friday, do people our age need an excuse?" 

"Suppose not. I wouldn't know, I'm not much one for parties, really." 

"I'm not usually," Phil says, "but my housemates are throwing it. And I thought maybe, in your capacity as my new friend, you might like to come." 

"Oh." 

The crack in Dan's ceiling runs from the edge of it, where the wall joins the coving, and curves over in a jagged, wayward semicircle toward the centre of the room. It isn't very wide, only barely a millimeter or so, but it is quite long. It looks worse in this lighting that usual, the fairy lights throw it into relief. Dan knows this because he traces the path of it over and over a few times before he'll let himself say any more. 

Phil waits, patiently. There isn't even the sound of his breathing filling the silence between them.

"I don't know," Dan finally settles on. 

"You don't have to," Phil is quick to reply. The words come out breathy and in a rush. 

"I don't… what if I'm really awkward?" 

Phil pulls his arm out from under the duvet and drapes it over the top. He scrunches up the edge of it so that it's folded under his chin. Dan risks a glance over to him, turning his head on the pillow and straining his neck, and immediately wishes he hadn't. The bottom drops out of his stomach, and he wants nothing more than to snuggle down close, forget this conversation entirely in favour of… something else. 

"I'll be awkward too," Phil says, "it's kind of my thing." 

"We should get some sleep," Dan says. It isn't a reply, it's barely even connected to the rest of their conversation at all, but it's all he can manage right now. 

Phil offers him a soft, sleepy smile, and lets him get away without a response. It's more than he could have hoped for. 

Dan turns his back, and moves down so that his head is in the centre of his pillow, instead of right at the very top. He pulls the duvet up over his shoulder, but wraps an ankle outside of it to let some cool air flow over his skin. 

Phil is fidgeting. The duvet is tugged this way and that as he moves, and when he settles, Dan can feel the warmth of him along his back. He's so close in Dan's tiny bed that if Dan moves even a muscle he'd come into contact with some unknown part of him. And who knows what happens then. 

"What is your next quest going to be?" Dan asks, into the dark. 

Something makes him ask, some urge to know what Phil considers a good use of his time. What captivates him, seeing as how the journey to Dan's friendship was such a simple one. He's easy, too starved for human contact and affection, too deprived of people that consider him a good use of their time. It will probably wear off once Phil realises he's actually not any of the things that he thinks he is, but for now he's happy to roll with it. 

When Phil replies, the words send a puff of air onto the back of Dan's neck. Warm breath in a punchy rhythm Dan could hum along to if he tried. He can picture the movement of Phil's mouth. He closes his eyes, sinking into that image for a while. 

"Mmm, I dunno," Phil says, and Dan gets goosebumps. "I'm sure I'll think of something."

* * *

Dan fully intended to wake before his guest, but he hadn't set an alarm. 

When he comes to, face smushed into his pillow, awakening from a dreamless sleep, Phil is stood in the middle of his bedroom fully dressed. 

Dan doesn't know whether he's allowed to be disappointed by that. 

"Morning," Phil says, following it up with one of the smiles Dan likes so much. "Or, well, afternoon." 

"What time is it?" Dan asks. 

"Time for me to go," Phil says. "Sorry." 

Dan levers himself up from the bed. He stumbles a bit when his legs first take his weight, and it makes him realise how deep of a sleep he'd been in. He can't remember the last time that happened. 

"I'll walk you out," Dan says. 

They don't talk much as they descend the stairs. Dan goes ahead of him, because there isn't enough space in the narrow corridor for them to be side by side, and he's aware of Phil's presence the entire way down. 

He's so preoccupied with thinking about whether his hair is stuck up at the back, whether Phil thinks it's weird that he invited him over here for absolutely no reason. Phil hadn't reached out across the bed, and neither had Dan. But Phil had stripped down to his boxers, and Dan had made sure he was fully dressed in jogging bottoms and a baggy t-shirt. He's not sure what expectations there had been, or whether he even wanted to live up to it. 

Either way, he feels like there is something of a missed opportunity, though for what, he doesn't know. 

His preoccupation with all of that means that he doesn't think about the fact that it is late afternoon, and he has four housemates. 

He was bound to bump into one of them. 

"Watch it!" Aaron says, and Dan rounds the door to the lounge at the bottom of the stairs and nearly collides with him. 

"Shit," Dan swears, and steps backwards out of his way, colliding with Phil. 

Phil reaches up to steady him with a hand on his arm and Aaron's eyes flick down to it. Dan's arm feels hot, and he shrugs out of Phil's grasp as quickly as he can. 

"Sorry," Dan says. 

"Hi," Aaron says, ignoring Dan entirely and looking over his shoulder at Phil. 

"Hi!" Phil replies, ever the cordial, happy person that he is. There is a hint of his customer service voice in there, Dan is pleased to note. He's never used that with Dan. "I'm Phil." 

"Aaron," Aaron says. 

"Are you one of Dan's housemates?" 

Aaron's hazel eyes flick to where Dan is off to the side, stepping out from between them both. "It would be pretty weird if I was hanging around here and I wasn't, wouldn't it?" 

Dan knows Aaron well enough to know that his voice has an edge that it doesn't usually, but Phil is meeting him for the first time so doesn't quite appreciate the fine line he's treading. Dan wants to hold his arms out, shield Phil from Aaron in the most dramatic way possible, and usher him out of the house as quickly as he can. 

"I suppose it would," Phil says, "I work with Dan, we had a bit of a long shift so he said I could crash here."

Phil doesn't owe him an explanation, and Dan wishes he wouldn't offer one. He's allowed to have a friend over, Dan tells himself, firmly, he is.

"Yeah, he's good like that, our Dan. Always willing to invite someone into his bed." 

Dan pushes himself back against the wall. He wants to shrink down, phase through the plaster entirely, and disappear. Phil's face look like he's caught in a particularly bright set of headlights, and Dan doesn't know how to rescue him. 

Aaron smirks, clearly pleased with himself. He shoves a hand into the pocket of the baggy, long shorts he's wearing and moves towards them with so much determination that Phil has to jump out of the way too, flattening himself against the wall next to Dan. 

"Well, see you fellas," he says, "nice to meet you Phil." 

He jogs up the stairs, taking them two at a time just to show off, and then Dan hears his bedroom door shut with a bang. 

"I'm… he's a dick," Dan says. 

It's the first time he's allowed himself to express outward hostility towards Aaron. He doesn't really know how to feel about it. 

"I should get going," Phil says. 

Dan walks him the rest of the way to the back door, even though they can see it from where they are standing. He hesitates as Phil opens it and pauses in the doorway. 

Dan, ridiculously, wants to ask him to stay for a bit longer. 

"What time is the party," Dan says.

"I thought you'd forgotten about that. Or at least, we just weren't mentioning it." 

Dan crooks his lips into a smile and runs a hand through his hair to try and flatten out the mess he knows it will be. Too much hairspray in an attempt to keep it straight. The ends at the nape of his neck are curling. 

"You've got to celebrate your completed quest," Dan laughs, and then bites the inside of his cheek. "Do you still want me to come?"

"Yes," Phil says. "If you really... are you sure you want to?"

"I can come to a party," Dan says, "no promises that I won't be super awkward though."

Phil regards him for a second. He looks like he's confused by a puzzle, and he bites down on his bottom lip as though contemplating what to do about it. 

"I don't have to come," Dan says, quickly, "I just... you asked me. It might be fun."

"Yes," Phil says, on a hum, "I think it might be."

Phil pulls his phone from his pocket and stabs at the screen before holding it out to Dan open at the new contacts page.

"What?" Dan says, though he knows the answer. He does that sometimes, questions even the tiniest of social interactions just to make sure he hasn't read them wrong. He doesn't know why.

"Give me your number?" Phil prompts. 

Dan types his number into Phil's phone and slips it back onto his palm. Phil looks down, obviously texting, and then puts it away. 

_I gave him my number_ Dan thinks, even though that statement is kind of redundant. 

"I've text you, so you've got mine," Phil says. "I'll send you the address and the time and stuff. I dunno what the others are doing. It's kind of... it's a casual thing." 

"Right," Dan replies, like he does that kind of casual socialising all the time and is in no way looking at some inner turmoil for the next few hours as he worries about all the painful small talk he has to look forward to.

Phil looks at him again, and his mouth opens as though he's going to say more. His adam apple bobs as he swallows whatever the words were going to be, and then raises a flat palm in a silent goodbye. 

Dan crooks two fingers to his temple in a farewell salute that he kicks himself for while still in the process of doing, and then Phil is gone, turning down the tunnel between Dan's house and the next.


	5. Chapter Five

Dan wishes that Thea didn't insist on him hanging out places that aren't his room. 

"You aren't at work tonight," she says, making him sit in the living room on the sofa that sags too low to the ground and always makes it difficult for him to get out of. 

"No, but I have plans." 

"You do?" 

Despite him essentially boycotting her company for the evening, she looks rather delighted for him. 

"Yeah. Just someone from work," Dan says, "there's a party or something. I dunno." 

They're interrupted by footsteps on the stairs and Dan flinches when Cassidy and Aaron come into the room. 

"Our Dan is going to a party with someone from work," Thea announces, like it's some kind of big news. 

Dan wonders what they say about him when he's not there. Do they talk about how isolated he is, do they pity sad, lonely Dan and his lack of social life? 

He remembers when him going to a party, with them, didn't used to be such a big deal. 

But that was before. Before everything had gone to shit, before he'd made all those mistakes and dropped out of uni.

Before he started hiding. 

"The same work person that stayed over last night?" Aaron says. 

He doesn't look at Dan as he says it, he's leaning into Cassidy's space, fingers possessively on her neck. She pushes on his arm gently, moving out from under him with a twitch of her eyebrow. 

"You had someone over?" Thea says. There is a hint of accusation in her voice, some hurt that he hadn't told her. 

Truth is, Dan didn't know how to bring it up. Between Phil leaving and Thea coming back from wherever she'd been and making him hang out with her, he'd just sort of... not said anything. 

He's not sure what he'd even say anyway. He made a friend, they crashed here when they were tired. That's all there is to it. 

"A shift at work went long, we were tired." That will have to do, as far as explanations go. 

Cassidy makes an excited 'oh' sound and sits down on the opposite couch. It's a different colour, a sickly green with lumpy cushions and a fray on the edge of both arms. "What's her name?" 

Her voice is obvious and sing-song, she draws her knees up in front of her and rests her chin on the gap between the rip in her jeans. 

Aaron snorts behind his hand, and cuts between the two sofas, skirting the room and disappearing into the kitchen. Dan hears him break into a full laugh and the kettle click on like a snare drum. 

"It's not like that," Dan says, quietly. 

Thea tucks a piece of red hair behind her ear, taking a breath and settling her eyes on him for a touch too long with a close-lipped smile. She acts like she knows things, when she doesn't know anything at all. 

Or at least, Dan doesn't think he _wants_ her to.

Dan's phone vibrates against his leg. He's sure it must be the text from Phil letting him know the address and time for the party, because that's the only person he's expecting to send him anything. He desperately wants to check it, but he doesn't want to do it in front of everyone. 

He finally wriggles out of the conversation, with only a lingering sense of Thea watching him too closely. Cassidy is happy to move on to other subjects, all Dan has to do is ask her something about herself and she's off and away. He doesn't ask about Aaron, as obvious as it is, it doesn't feel like the kind of thing people are talking about, but rather accepting with as minimal fuss as possible. He wishes that rule existed for other things as well. 

The text message tells Dan to come over whenever he likes. Phil puts a string of emojis on the end that Dan would usually find obnoxious, or irritating, but he finds himself smiling at his phone this time. 

He jumps in the shower, scrubbing himself clean. He washes his hair and then straightens it to within an inch of its life. A crowded party, the humid air, are likely to undo all of his handiwork but it feels important to try. 

He dresses in all black, realising as he pulls his shirt over his head that Phil has only seen him in his pyjamas or his uniform, and Dan has only ever seen Phil in his uniform. _And out of it,_ his brain supplies. Dan clenches his hand around his phone, spins it between his fingers, and shoves it roughly into his pocket. 

He has a brief panic that this might be a mistake. Maybe they should keep their burgeoning friendship to the confines of work uniforms and cordial hellos as they swap shifts. Perhaps the card games and the impromptu sleepovers were a mistake, and this party is going to be the final nail in the coffin. He descends the stairs anyway, sending himself in the direction of the door like these thoughts and the movement of his legs are two separate processes. 

"Are you fucking him?"

Dan spins around at the door and Aaron is standing at the microwave. 

"What?" 

"The guy from this morning. Are you?" 

"No," Dan says. Only after does he consider that it isn't actually any of Aaron's business. 

"You need to be careful," Aaron says. "You can't just be bringing random blokes back here."

He puts his hand on Dan's arm. His fingers lock, and what starts as a friendly looking squeeze, starts to hurt. 

"Phil is just a friend," Dan says, "I barely know him."

Aaron scoffs, pulling a face like he's disgusted. "Of course you don't," he says.

He drops Dan's arm, but Dan can still feel the tight pressure even after it's gone.

"Don't bring him back here again," Aaron says, "I don't need randos in my house."

Aaron steps into Dan's space. His skin is warm, heat radiating off it. His eyes are tiny pin pricks in hazel irises framed by thin, wispy lashes. Dan blinks, reaching out to steady himself on the edge of the kitchen counter.

He makes an agreeing sound in his nose, a hum more than anything, and then ducks out from under Aaron's assessing glare and flees out of the door. 

He should have asked someone. He shouldn't have brought Phil back to their house without letting someone know. It was rude and reckless, disrespectful to the people he shares his house with. 

The image of Phil wrapped in his duvet comes to mind. The patch of hair on his chest disappearing beneath Dan's sheets, the peaks of his cheekbones illuminated by fairy lights. 

He knows now that it was wrong, but it hadn't felt like it at the time.

* * *

Dan oscillates between the buzzer on the door, and the gate back out onto the street. The building looms over him, large and imposing. All he needs to do is push the button on the small silver console, and then Phil will let him in. After that, it's a short trip in a lift, a knock on an unfamiliar door, and then he'll see Phil again. 

Phil, and any number of other people he'll have to talk to and pretend that he isn't a complete loser with. 

He should just go home. His stomach feels heavy with guilt over continuing this friendship when he knows it will end in disaster. He's flattered Phil thinks he's worth the quest, but Dan doesn't consider himself much by way of loot. 

Good job he'd been so easy for Phil to win over. 

"You look lost," someone says, walking up behind him. 

He turns to see a tall woman approaching him in a worn leather jacket, her hair is a shock of white-blonde curls on top, shaved close to her scalp on the sides. 

"I'm… fine," Dan says. 

"You looking for someone?" She asks, "I live here, maybe I can help?" 

"Er," Dan considers that this is the point at which he could deny everything and simply go home. He'll tell Phil he got sick, or that something came up, and then slowly, quietly, cease hanging out with him. Instead, his mouth decides to work against him. "Phil. He invited me to a party." 

"Oh! You're Phil's friend. I'm Max, one of Phil's housemates." 

Max moves past Dan to open the door and beckons him in with a finger. Before Dan knows it he's in the lift and then Max is opening the door on an apartment, never once having had to make awkward small talk because she doesn't stop talking the entire time. 

"I'm so glad Phil invited a friend over, we've been telling him he needs to get out more. It hasn't been easy for him since he moved back, I think he's still adjusting to life after uni, you know?"

Dan nods, trying to take in the gentle chaos that is the narrow corridor they've walked into. It's a mess of doors and shoes. One door opens onto a bathroom, another onto a messy bedroom in bright pink that Dan doesn't think is Phil's, but he could be wrong. There are two more closed doors then, at the end of the long corridor, noise is emanating from what Dan assumes is the lounge. 

"Sounds like they've started without us," Max says. 

"Started what?" 

"Mario Kart." 

Dan follows Max down the corridor. The noise gets louder as they approach and Dan begins to feel that tightening in his stomach that comes along with stepping into the unknown. It isn't fear, exactly, more like something to put him on edge, keep him aware of all the things that could go wrong. 

"Look who I found downstairs," Max says, presenting Dan as he comes around the door with wild, excited arms. 

"Dan!"

Phil is the first person he sees, jumping up from a beanbag he's slouched against and running over to them. His cheeks are a ruddy pink, his hair is still damp like he's not long showered, and he doesn't have glasses on. He puts his arms around Dan and tugs him into a warm, solid hug. 

"Oh," Phil says, a shocked little noise in Dan's ear, "sorry. I don't think we've hugged before. Is that okay? I don't know why I did that." 

He pulls back, and Dan can see how his eyes are wide and a little unfocused. He's maybe had a drink, or two. As gleeful as Phil looks, as happy and unburdened as he seems, it makes Dan wary to think that Phil might be intoxicated. 

"It's fine," Dan says. 

Phil cocks an eyebrow and crosses his arms over his chest. 

"Really fine," Dan says, "for real." 

It's been a few hours since they last saw each other, yet Dan feels like he can't get enough of staring. Phil looks right back at him, slightly unfocused, until they are interrupted by someone clearing their throat.

"Uh, Phil." 

Phil turns around, mouth parted and eyes wide. 

"Did you forget we were here?" A girl behind him asks. 

"No," Phil says, voice high and defensive. The room giggles. "This is Dan." 

Phil tugs at Dan's sleeve so that he's knocked off balance for a brief moment before he can regain his footing. Not the first impression he'd wanted to give, but Phil is adorably drunk so he's going to go with it. 

There are two other people beside Max and Phil. Each looking up at him with bewildered expressions.

"Nice to meet you Dan, I'm Annie," says a girl with faded hair that was probably green once, with dark brown at the roots and almost white blonde on the ends. Max drops onto the arm of the couch next to her and puts a hand casually to the back of her neck. 

Dan has to look away. 

"Hi," Dan says, to the floor. 

"And I'm Noel." A guy on the opposite end of the couch says, waving an exuberant hand at him. He's got black lipstick on and a t-shirt that says 'be gay do crimes' in big white letters. 

Dan doesn't know what that means, it makes him feel like he's looking at a secret, like these people hold too much edgy confidence and he can never hope to fit in. These people and this scene doesn't fit with how he'd pictured Phil, but he remembers the rainbow pin and wonders if he's bitten off more than he can chew. 

"Phil got a head start," Noel says, standing. "Drink?"

"Oh, um, yes?"

"Is that a question?" 

Dan looks at Phil, who smiles encouragingly. 

"Don't have to drink if you don't want to," Phil shrugs. 

"Yes," Dan says, tearing himself away from looking at Phil's understanding smile to address Noel, "a drink would be good, please."

Phil beckons him over, dropping back down to sit with his back against the bean bag and patting the floor next to him. Dan drops into the space easily, arranging himself and aware of every limb. 

Phil leans over, his shoulder pressed against Dan's. Considering they'd shared a bed last night it shouldn't make him feel as nervous as he does. 

"Hey," Phil says, "you okay?"

Dan looks at the room. Noel walks back in with a drink and passes it to Dan. Max has fingers in Annie's hair and Annie is holding a console controller in her hand. 

"I'm fine," Dan says. "What are you guys playing?" 

"Mario Kart," Annie says, "you play? Phil is too drunk to be any good and the rest of them are just awful."

"Hey!" Noel says, indignantly. Annie cocks an eyebrow at him until he backs down. "Fine. I am absolutely awful at video games. But I try my best, that should count for something." 

He throws his head back, he's got dark hair that skims his shoulders and it moves wonderfully. He's a whole picture, long nails and lipstick, but stubble and muscular arms, it shouldn't all work together but it does. Dan feels envious of it, the ability to be all those walking contradictions without a care for whether or not other people have anything to say. 

"I'm alright," Dan says. 

Annie passes him a controller and Phil slumps down against the beanbag, and consequently also against Dan. 

As they settle into the game, Dan unwinds. The atmosphere is jokey and fond, they all get on and no one asks Dan to say anything he doesn't want to say. 

"Alright?" Annie says after the first round, "you're more than alright! I haven't had this good an opponent in ages!"

Annie is small, but loud. She's petite, all sharp elbows and candy floss pastel hair, she looks like the least intimidating person ever and yet she fits in beside brash, bold Max who keeps an arm around her shoulders the entire time, looking at her like she's the best thing ever. 

Dan doesn't want to stare, but Noel keeps doling out drinks between rounds and by the time they're all buzzed enough to give up on the game, he finds that he's watching them as the drinks start unfurling in his bloodstream. 

He's watching Annie lean over and kiss Max firmly on the mouth in response to a joke and Dan has to avert his eyes. As he does, he finds Phil looking at him. 

"You're good at that," Phil says. 

"What?" 

"Mario Kart." 

"Oh, yeah. It's… I don't know. Just something I can do."

Phil is holding a glass and he swipes his thumb through the condensation collecting on the outside of it. 

"What other hidden talents do you have?" Phil asks. 

"I don't think I have any," Dan shrugs. 

Phil is close. His eyes are blue in the light from the TV and night time has fallen properly at the windows. This isn't the kind of party Dan thought this would be, he had expected loud music and a sweaty crowd but instead he gets Phil pressed against him on the floor and too much vodka making him feel reckless. 

"I find that hard to believe," Phil says. 

He licks his lips and his eyes drop down to Dan's mouth. Suddenly, Dan is very aware that there are other people in the room. 

"I'm, uh, I'm going to go get some water." 

The words come out in a rush and he scrambles up from the floor. He's in the hall before he realises he has no idea where the kitchen is, but finds it one door along and steps into the bright, artificial lighting. 

He's still got his glass in his hand so he finishes off the remaining dregs, wincing at the strong flavour, and fills it from the tap. He leans against the counter and takes several sips, trying to steady the way his heart is beating. 

Noel walks in about a minute later. 

"Alright?" He says. "Drinks too strong for you?" 

Dan looks at his water and then back at Noel, "something like that."

"You and Phil look cozy."

Dan feels his stomach twist, and he puts his glass down on the counter with a click. The lights are too bright all of a sudden. 

"We're not— we work together," Dan says. 

"I know. Look, don't worry I didn't…" he fades off and looks at Dan for a moment. Dan doesn't know what he sees but whatever it is makes him take a breath and start again. "I'm glad Phil has a new friend, he doesn't tend to get out much." 

"Me either," Dan says, thinking of how this is the second person to say that about Phil tonight. 

"Well you can come over here whenever," Noel says. 

"Oh, um, thanks." 

Dan wants to shrink under this kind of kindness. There's nothing about him that deserves someone extending a welcome like that, but also nothing in his experience that makes him think it will last. People say things. People are your friends for a while but sooner or later life moves on, connections fade. Dan doesn't leave an impression, he isn't anyone's best anything, he just gets forgotten. He winds up alone with an empty wall that used to be full of photos. 

Noel leaves him alone and Dan drinks a bit more of his water. He's about to join the fray again, either to sit back down or to excuse himself and go home, he hasn't decided, but at the moment Phil comes into the kitchen. 

"Sorry, I was just coming back," Dan says, conscious that it may be rude to be a guest in someone's house but spend so much time alone in a separate room. 

"I came to find you," Phil says. 

"Was I lost?" 

He means it as a joke, to fondly mock the way Phil is drunk, but it comes out seriously, far too earnest. 

"I don't know what you are," Phil says, just as earnest. 

Dan is still leaning on the counter so when Phil comes close he has nowhere to go. There is a part of him that wants to run. He should go home and forget how blue Phil's eyes are and the way he makes Dan just a bit stupid. There is another part, a louder part, that wants this to play out. 

He's always been a sucker for a bad idea. Look at Aaron, his job, his whole life is built out of bad ideas that have terrible consequences and yet he keeps doing it. There's a part of him that feels like he deserves it. 

So he stays. Even when Phil reaches up to poke at his cheek. 

"Dimple," he says. 

"Yeah." 

"Sorry. I think I'm a bit drunk." 

Dan offers him a smile. "Don't worry, I think I am too. A bit. Noel mixes strong drinks."

"He does. And also I…" Phil ducks his head. His roots are lighter than the rest of his hair, a warmer tone of lighter brown. "I was a bit nervous so I had too many." 

"Nervous? Of what?" 

"You." Phil lifts his head and looks him right in the face. Dan can feel the warmth of his body with how close he is. "You make me nervous."

Dan shakes his head, "I do? Don't be stupid." 

"You're stupid."

"Your mum is stupid," Dan says. He wonders if he's gone too far again, but Phil is laughing, tipping forward so that his forehead lands on Dan's shoulder. 

Dan reaches out to steady him and ends up with his hands on Phil's waist. 

"You make me nervous too," Dan says. 

Phil's laughter trails off. His head is gone from Dan's shoulder but his hand comes up to press at the side of Dan's neck. His fingers are cold, his expression one of concentration. 

"You don't seem like you're nervous," Phil says. 

"You don't either." 

There's a beat, and then Phil is leaning in. It feels inevitable, like a foregone conclusion set in motion the moment Phil arrived at his shift that first night. And yet, Dan can't really believe it's happening. 

"Are you going to kiss me in your kitchen?" Dan says.

"Unless there is somewhere else you'd rather me kiss you?" 

"No," Dan says, and then, "I mean yes. Other places, but also here. Now. If you like—" 

"Okay," Phil says, bringing a finger up over Dan's lips. His hands are still cold and Dan breathes out on them, words stopping. "But you have to stop talking first." 

Dan nods against Phil's hand, and then it's gone, replaced by the warmth of his lips. It's chaste, at first, close mouthed and firm, but Dan leans into Phil and their lips part simultaneously. 

He doesn't know how long it lasts. His arms are around Phil's waist and Phil has a hand on his jaw, his neck. Phil kisses him with a tentative kind of want, never pushing too hard or too fast unless Dan sighs and pulls him closer. And he does. 

The lights in the kitchen are bright, and Dan is drunk. Phil's hands are warming up and Dan feels hot all over. He gasps and sinks his fingers into Phil's waist. Behind his eyelids, the light turns purple and Dan has to pull away. 

"Sorry," Dan says, "I'm drunk I shouldn't have—" 

"It was me," Phil says. "You didn't want— Sorry, I thought you…" 

Phil's lips are pink and his cheeks flushed. He looks scared and hurt and dan doesn't want that. 

"I did want," Dan says. "I do. I'm just… god, I'm just a bit of a mess. I think. You probably shouldn't kiss me." 

"I wanted to," Phil says. "I do want to. Still." 

"You might not by tomorrow," Dan says. "You're drunk."

Phil's brow twitches and his hand is still against Dan's neck. "What if I do?" 

Dan shrugs. Phil's hand dislodges and his own hands fall away from Phil's body. Everything is going wrong, but maybe that's for the best. 

"If you do then, you can. I guess." 

Phil smiles. His whole face brightens with it, and he can see the white glint of his teeth. 

"God, I'm drunk," Phil says. 

Dan nods, sadly. He knows how this goes now. He knows what it means to kiss in separate rooms and then go back in front of your friends and act like it never happened. 

He knows, and he can't stand that it might be that way with Phil. 

"Yeah," Dan says, "me too. I should probably go." 

"Go?" 

"Yes. Home. I should— I'm gunna go." 

Dan steps out and around Phil. He marches resolutely to the living room to collect his coat. He makes a good show of thanking everyone for coming, of keeping a stoic face and doing Phil the favour of not letting on what just happened. 

He hates being the secret, he doesn't want to do it anymore and yet, when Phil catches up with him at the door, he waits. 

"Will you still want to kiss me tomorrow?" Phil asks. 

Dan watches the nervous twitch in the corner of Phil's mouth. His eyes are minutely unfocused with drink, his feet a touch too unsteady. 

"Yes," Dan says. 

"What if you don't?" 

"I will." 

Phil opens his mouth to argue but Dan shakes his head, cutting him off.

"I will," he repeats. 

The hallway is dim, and Dan lets Phil hug him goodbye. He steps out of Phil's flat, rides the elevator down and then he's back on a night time street. 

There are patches of orange where the streetlights cast circles on the pavement and Dan puts on a playlist of dark, thudding piano, and counts the steps between each of them. He knows the way home, he knows the path in the dark, even when he wishes that he didn't. 

The cold air sobers him up. Each of the night's events swirling and replaying themselves as the blanket of intoxication slides away. He's acted foolishly, but he can't pretend that he regrets kissing Phil. He's glad he knows what it's like, even if it doesn't happen again. 

He has no idea if this is like before. He desperately wants Phil to prove him wrong, for this all to work out differently than it ever has before, but he has no frame of reference for what the alternative might be. He's kidding himself. Even if he wakes up tomorrow and Phil never wants to talk to him again, he doesn't know if he'll be able to regret it. It isn't something he's been good at historically.

By the time he gets into his own bed, music still playing and his sheets smelling faintly like Phil's hair, he still hasn't made up his mind.


	6. Chapter Six

His hangover is taken care of pretty quickly. Thea brings him a bacon sandwich and a steaming cup of coffee around noon and Dan could kiss her with how grateful he is. 

If the thought of kissing her didn't make him feel a little weird. 

He's three bites into his sandwich when he thinks this and he has to put it down, because he suddenly remembers, in vivid detail, that he'd kissed Phil last night. 

"Drunk flashbacks?" Thea says. 

She's upside down on his bed again. He feet are extended up the wall, her toenails still blue. Dan doesn't know whether polish just lasts that long or if she paints them every other day.

"Ugh, yeah." 

"And what antics did you get up to?" 

Thea has her chin on her hand and an interested expression on her face. Dan doesn't want to talk about it, exactly, because talking about it makes it feel like just another snippet of gossip, and it isn't. 

He doesn know what it is, but it isn't that. 

"Nothing," he says, "I hung out with Phil and his flatmates. We played Mario Kart." 

"Phil?" 

"The guy from work." 

"The guy from— oh. Okay." 

Dan runs back over the conversation. His hangover is making his head fuzzy so it takes him a moment before he realises that until this point, Dan hadn't told her about Phil. At least, not beyond her asking presumptive questions yesterday. 

"Told you, it's not like that." 

"I didn't say it was."

"No I know I just… you know, just in case." 

Thea nods, and sits back up, crossing her legs under her. "It's alright Dan. I get it." 

You don't, Dan thinks. She doesn't get it, and Dan doesn't know whether he wants her to. On the one hand he really kind of wants to shout about the whole thing and ask her what the hell he should do about Phil kissing him in the kitchen, but on the other, he really can't deal with it if that conversation goes hand in hand with her saying something like "so you like boys?" 

He's beyond that. He would love to skip the part where he needs to explain it, the part where he asks her to keep a secret for him. 

Thea might be okay, he's pretty sure, but how long after Thea before Cassidy knows, before Justin, before Aaron finds out he's talking about it. After that, it might just be a short jump to finding out what happened before… and that is not something he wants to happen. 

"Thanks for the breakfast," he says, derailing the direction of the conversation. 

"No worries. You'd do the same for me, right?" 

The last time she had a hangover she'd still been the one to bring him coffee, so he isn't too sure. 

"Course," he says, mostly meaning it. 

Thea doesn't ask him anymore about Phil. Dan is relieved, but also there is something about last night that makes him want to talk about it endlessly. He could go on and on about the exact way Phil looked as he leaned in, when he'd said he wanted to kiss him. 

He hopes Phil does still want to kiss him today. Not that Dan thinks he will, or that it will happen, or even if he still wants to kiss Phil. But he's seeing him later, Phil's shift is still rota'd after his. 

He doesn't know if last night changes anything, but Dan feels different. Scared, happy, apprehensive. Happy. 

And happy is scary.

Dan finishes his coffee and his sandwich and Thea turns the conversation away from his stuff and onto her own. He likes hearing about the things she gets up to, he can get lost in the stories about her life and forget he has a scary, big thing potentially happening in his.

"Is it just me, or is there something weird going on with you and Aaron?" Thea says in the middle of chatting about something else. 

"No," Dan says. His voice comes out wobbly, strangled. " I mean… not that I've noticed." 

Thea turns her head. Her hair is tucked behind her ear, strands of it messy over her forehead. "Chill. I wasn't accusing you. I don't know, things feel weird. Maybe it's just second year, or because you're not…"

"Not in uni anymore," Dan says, "you're allowed to talk about it."

"Am I?" 

"Yes," Dan assures her. It's true. The idea that he isn't at uni anymore doesn't hurt in itself, it's the bit that comes next that's panic inducing. The bit where people ask what he's doing instead, what's the plan. 

"Good to know."

"If anything is weird it's me," Dan says.

"You're not weird," Thea says, patting his leg, "It's just… you're different than you used to be. Sort of, far away." 

"I literally live with you."

"I mean, in first year we were all really close and then… now it doesn't feel the same." 

"Hm."

"Cassidy and Aaron are sleeping together, did you know?" 

"I got that, yeah."

"I told her that she really shouldn't shit where she eats."

"That's a charming metaphor," Dan says, screwing his nose up.

Thea sighs, and lays back down on Dan's bed dramatically. "I don't know. It's all weird," she says. "Everything is different."

"Yeah," Dan says, nodding even though she can't see him, "I guess it is."

* * *

His work playlist is coming to an end and Dan is too distracted to even admonish himself for not sorting that out yet. 

He's drumming his fingers on the desk. He's restless, so much so that he's actually unpacked some stock even though he doesn't need to. It's Saturday night, which means he's had drunk people at his window buying cigarettes and complaining about the broken cash machine, but even that isn't enough to distract him from the constantly running thoughts in his head. 

He isn't waiting for Phil, he tells himself. He isn't anticipating what will happen, he isn't worried about it. 

He's good at lying to himself for the most part, but he's having a hard time swallowing this one. 

He's so anxious, leg jiggling, heel clipping against the edge of the chair's wheels, that he doesn't even notice Phil crossing the forecourt until there's a soft knock at the door. Dan's finger fumbles on the button to unlock the door but Phil pushes it open and comes into the shop. 

He pauses between one of aisles, lit on one side by the white lights of outside, his hair shining. He looks exactly like Dan remembers him, and completely different at the same time. 

"Hi," Phil says. 

"Hi." 

Dan's reply sounds like a sigh, all breathy and surprised. He hates how pathetic that makes him sound like he's just been lamely sat here waiting for Phil. He has, but he doesn't want Phil to know that. 

Play it cool, Dan, he thinks. 

"How are you?" 

Dan shrugs, affecting a careless attitude. "Oh you know, I'm all good."

"Hangover?" 

"I did in the morning," he says, "today. Yesterday. You know what I mean." 

It's five in the morning and technically Sunday, but he never thinks it counts as the next day until he sleeps. 

"Did you?" He asks. 

"A little. I swear I don't usually drink that much." 

"Me either." 

"It was just…"

"Yeah," Dan says.

_You make me nervous._ Still as true today as it was then, Dan wonders if it's the same for Phil.

"I had a good time though," Phil says. He comes around the counter then, in through the gap and into the small space behind. They're crammed in, close and awkward, barely enough room for the two of them. "Did you?"

"I… yes. I did. It... It was…" 

Phil smiles, and Dan notices the air come out of him, as if he'd been holding it in. "Yeah," Phil says, "It was. Good." 

Dan doesn't know what comes next, but Phil is happy now, looser. He's all angles still, but there is something easier about his movements as he takes off his backpack. He's in that black coat with all the pockets. There's a tiny rainbow on his collar. Dan lifts his thigh and sits down on the edge of his hand to stop himself reaching out to touch it.

"So when you said you wanted me to kiss you places that weren't my kitchen, does that mean here?" 

Dan swallows. Phil has this way of saying things that seem like they shouldn't be said so outright. Like they should talk around the issue instead of the way Phil runs into it head-on. 

Dan looks over his shoulder, out the window at the empty forecourt. It's illuminated by overhead lighting but it's deserted. 

"Yes," he says, trying to summon the courage to sound as sure as Phil does. 

Phil just smirks at him and leans in to capture his mouth. 

Dan keeps his leg clamped down on his hand. He doesn't want to do something ridiculous like pull Phil into his lap and keep him there for the remainder of Phil's shift. The temptation is there to do just that, but he resists. 

When they part, Dan sighs. It isn't that he didn't enjoy it, quite the opposite, he just wishes this felt easy. He wishes he could enjoy the pleasant butterflies in his stomach, and not just tense all over like someone is going to pull the rug out at any moment. 

"That bad?" Phil asks. He laughs, but Dan can see the truth behind it. 

"No!" Dan says, hurriedly. He puts a hand on Phil's arm and looks down at his fingers contrasted against the black material. There's a rainbow pin on his lapel, and Dan just won't ever be bold enough to do that, to advertise everything without fear. "It was nice. I've just never…" 

"Oh. With… like anyone? Or…" Phil fades off. 

This is exactly what Dan doesn't want to do. He doesn't want to talk about what he has or hasn't done, what he does or does want to do. He wants things, and doesn't want others, but it's never as easy as having them happen without having to talk about it. 

He knows it would be asking too much of Phil for him to read Dan's mind, but there's a voice in Dan's head telling him that if he says out loud all the secret things he dreams about, the way he wishes his life were, that it will all go wrong. 

"I… just not with…" he groans, turning back to the cash register to log out. It's Phil's shift now technically, and he needs to leave. "Sorry. I'm not good at this. I don't know how to tell you things." 

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," Phil says. His voice has an edge to it, resolute and firm. 

Dan sags against the desk. The display of phone mounts rattle in the boxes. 

"This is crazy," Dan says, "isn't it? You don't know me. Not really." 

"I know I like you."

Dan's face feels hot. He has to look away, across the counter to the racks of chocolate bars and crisps. 

"I…" 

"Dan?" Phil says, "can you look at me?" 

Dan turns. Phil's hands are in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. His hair is in his eyes and he flicks his head to move it. Dan runs a hand through his own fringe unconsciously, ruffling it up and smoothing it back down. 

"I like you too," Dan says.

It feels brave, terrifying, bigger than it should. It's admitting something, like baring something hidden, revealing a part of himself he doesn't share with anyone. 

He holds his breath. 

Phil's face breaks into a smile. His cheekbones are high and angular, his hands ball into fists at his sides and he unfurls, chest puffing out just a little. 

"That's good," he says.

They look at each other for what feels like forever. Dan doesn't know what to say and Phil seems content to sit in silence. 

"This is ridiculous," Dan says, after a while. He never could be counted on not to ruin a moment. 

"If you say so." 

Dan laughs. It's not so much a cynical chuckle, more of a giddy giggle. He tries to cut it off almost immediately, but it's out there now. 

"It's your shift," Dan says. 

Phil continues grinning at him. It's maniacal, sort of big and bright and more than Dan deserves.

"Stop," Dan tells him as they squeeze past each other. 

"No," Phil says. 

He catches Dan by the hip, pulls him close and kisses him, quick and hard. Dan feels the blush before he's even pulled away. 

"I can't stay for your shift," Dan tells him. 

The bell sounds as a car pulls up to a pump, startling them both. Phil moves to press the button so that it will start. 

"Probably a good thing," Phil says. 

"Why?" 

Dan is shrugging into his coat, his earphones looped around his neck. 

"I don't think I'd get any work done if you stayed."

Dan bites down on his bottom lip to stop himself sporting his own wild, unrestrained, foolish smile. 

"Go on, Phil says. "I'll text you?" 

"Will you?" 

"Yes." Phil says. 

Dan leaves the shop through the front door, pushing his earphones into his ears. He starts his music, selecting a happier playlist than he's used to at this point in the day to take him home.

As soon as he's out of the lights of the forecourt, back onto the relative darkness of the moonlit street, Dan finally lets the grin come freely

It's bigger than he'd thought it would be.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: This chapter contains a physical altercation between Dan and an OC in the form of a forced kiss

Dan turns onto his street and is a couple of doors away from his house when his phone vibrates. It feels idiotic to be happy about it, but he's proved right when he pulls it out to find a text from Phil.

**Phil:** If you wanted to come back and keep me company I wouldn't mind ^_^

**Dan:** what happened to not being able to get any work done

**Phil:** It would be worth it. Commuters don't need petrol anyway, right?

Dan pauses under a street lamp and smiles into the collar of his coat, breath rebounding back hot on his cheek. 

**Dan:** i think they probably do mate

**Phil:** :) Can I see you another time then? 

Dan wants to say yes. He wants to text back immediately and tell Phil that he'll see him just as soon as Phil will have him. He's eager to find out what happens next, he has no experience with what happens after someone you like, likes you back. 

To Dan, Phil has so far only ever been something from the night time. He's slept beside him and spent time with him as the sun rises, but he can't imagine what it would be like to step out into bright sunshine, next to Phil, so the whole world can see what Dan is and who Phil is to him. 

And that's the problem. He has no idea what Phil is, or what Dan will allow him to become. Dan doesn't know if he's capable of it, if he can be what Phil will need him to be. Phil isn't a person who can exist only in night time. He isn't someone that should be confined to separate rooms and under a blanket of darkness. 

Phil is bright colours, as warm and vivid as sunshine. Dan can't be that in return.

Dan puts his phone back in his pocket without replying. He puts his earphone back in his ear because it's slipped loose, and makes his way into the dark, silent house. 

The kitchen has dishes piled up on the side, and the lamp in the living room is on. It isn't out of the ordinary for someone to leave a light on, but it is strange that Aaron is sat under its yellow glow, a green beer bottle cradled in his hands. The label is ripped, flakes of it lay in a scatter around Aaron's feet and his whole body is leaned sideways. 

He doesn't look up immediately, and Dan has no desire to start a conversation, so he tries to make his way across the room with as little eye contact as possible. 

"What are you sneaking around for?" Aaron asks. 

"I'm not sneaking," Dan says, "it's the middle of the night. I'm being quiet." 

"Of course you're sneaking around in the middle of the night."

Dan sighs, because apparently they're going to do this. Aaron's voice is getting louder and the last thing he wants is for the rest of the house to wake up. 

"Shh," Dan says, holding a hand out with his palm to the floor. "I'm getting in from work."

"So you say," Aaron says. 

He heaves himself up from the couch. It creaks and Aaron stumbles a single step over to him. He smells of stale sweat and beer, Dan takes a step back away from him. 

"You could have been anywhere. Probably with that guy you're fucking."

"Quiet," Dan says, "you'll wake the whole house."

"Wouldn't want that would we Danny boy? Then everyone might find out about you." 

Dan shakes his head. "You're drunk."

"I had a few drinks," Aaron says. He shrugs, the movement is big, arms swinging. His balance is off and he almost falls but catches himself at the last minute. Dan moves out of his way but it puts him in the space between the arm of the couch and the wall. Short of climbing over the sofa to escape, he's hemmed him. "It's not a crime."

"No, it's not. You're fine," Dan says. 

"Fucking right I am. I'm great, Cassidy is the bitch."

"Cassidy?" Dan says, frowning, "but I thought… look, just let me get past? I'm going to bed."

Aaron looks around, seeming to take in their relative positions for the first time. He smiles, the white shine of his teeth is unnerving in the dim light. 

"Cassidy doesn't want to fuck someone she's living with anymore," Aaron says. "Whatever, she's a bitch anyway." 

"Cassidy is your friend," Dan reminds him, "and mine. I'm sure she just wants—" 

"You like to fuck people you live with though, don't you."

Dan's mouth shuts, quick. His teeth clang together and his jaw tightens. He needs to leave, he braces his body, he's tensed and ready to flee as soon as there is an opportunity. Maybe he will climb over the couch, it wouldn't be the worst thing.

"Yeah," Aaron says. He steps closer, into the space between the sofa and wall and consequently right into Dan's space.

His breath smells like beer. He's giving off heat in waves and Dan tries to breathe through his mouth rather than his nose. 

"Aaron," Dan says, "I think you need to go to bed." 

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" 

Dan tries to move past him, using his height as an advantage to push at Aaron's body, trying to make him unsteady enough for Dan to get away. 

"What's the rush?" Aaron says. He catches Dan by the arm, fingers squeezing. He's broader than Dan, even though he's a little shorter, and he definitely has more muscle, so Dan can't get past.

This can't be happening. Dan's chest starts to hurt with the rising panic, he tries to remind himself that Aaron is his friend, but the situation is evolving into something Dan doesn't want to be around for. 

They'd been friends in first year. Aaron had always been cooler, more sociable, someone Dan couldn't really see himself being friends with in any other situation. He's attractive, big and masculine in a way that Dan wasn't but that was undeniably a _man_, so when he took an interest in Dan, when he spent time with him and drunkenly lead him to a room filled with purple lights, Dan had followed. 

Not his best decision, but he was exhausted from holding himself back. He was fed up of telling himself that he didn't want things, wrung out from carrying that fear, wearing it like a constant coat. 

After, when Dan had stared up at the ceiling, it was like a switch had been flicked. Aaron wasn't his friend anymore, he wasn't the cool guy that wanted to take Dan under his wing. His large, broad body became a threat rather than something alluring.

He said it was Dan's fault, that he wasn't the same as Dan, it was just a one time thing. He wasn't the same, he wasn't different and broken and wrong. 

Dan tried to stay out of his way, to act like it hadn't happened. It seemed to be that Aaron wanted it that way.

In a way, he wanted it not to have happened too. He wanted to go back to a time when he hadn't made such a stupid mistake, where experiencing something like that for the first time wasn't all tied up in losing a friend. 

Dan isn't sure who's fault it was, but he feels guilty about it all the same. 

"Aaron," Dan says, aware his voice is louder than it should be. Upstairs, he hears the toilet door click shut and he lowers it back to a suitable volume. "Go to bed mate, you're drunk."

"Didn't bother you last time." 

Aaron moves in close, slides a hand up over Dan's shoulders. His grip is tight, and Dan moves his neck to pull his face out of the stream of beer-scented breath coming from his mouth. 

"Don't act like you don't want to. You're parading blokes through here all the time now," he grins, teeth bared, "did you tell your little work fuck buddy about me?" 

"Leave Phil out of it," Dan says. 

He suddenly can't stand to have Phil mentioned. He doesn't want him here, in all of this. Phil is a good thing, he makes Dan happy and texts Dan when he says he is going to. He invites Dan to a party and never blames him for the impulsive things that happen like kissing in the kitchen. 

"Touchy," Aaron says. "I bet you haven't told him, I bet you're out fucking loads of bloke all the time and none of them know about each other."

Dan wants to protest Aaron's slurred accusations but instead of waiting for a reply, Aaron punctuates the end of his sentence by leaning in to crush his mouth against Dan's. 

Dan gasps, air rushing from his lungs. It doesn't last long, Aaron's teeth graze his bottom lip and Dan balls up a fist on Aaron's chest and shoves, hard. 

Aaron stumbles back, swearing. 

"Get off!" Dan yells, chest heaving with panic, exertion, something. "Leave me alone. Why are you— I don't understand."

"You're pathetic," Aaron says.

Dan is shaking, their voices are loud, and there are footsteps on the stairs. Aaron hears it, he must, but he either doesn't care or he wants them to see because he lunges forward just as Thea and Cassidy come running down the stairs and into the living room. Even Justin, who is usually sequestered in his room regardless of what is happening, throws open his door and strides into the fray. 

Dan jumps, mounting the arm of the couch as Aaron's hands land on his shoulders and he twists, pulling a muscle in his side.

"Aaron!" He yells, "stop, please."

He trips, face first into the cushions of the sofa seat and Aaron is pulled backwards and away. Justin has a strong arm around his waist and Aaron is struggling. 

"Fuck off," he says, voice loud and ringing in the room. "You don't know, you don't know."

"Are you alright?" Thea approaches Dan who rolls himself over and off the couch. 

He stands in the middle of the room, guarded and a few paces away from where Aaron flails in Justin's grip. Cassidy is watching them all with an expression of shock.

Dan nods. His earphone swing around his neck, songs still playing. "I'm fine," he says, "I don't know what happened." 

"Yes you do," Aaron says, "you know what you did."

"Dan," Thea says. She places a hand on his arm and Dan is shaking so hard he pulls out of her grip. 

He shakes his head, the muscle in his side twinging in pain where he pulled it. He opens his mouth respond to Thea, to tell her he's fine, but nothing comes out. 

"What happened?" Cassidy is still in the doorway. Her hands hang limp by her sides, she is dressed in pyjama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt, her hair in a high ponytail atop her head. She's make-up free, which Dan doesn't see often, and it lends her an overall air of being much smaller and much younger than she is. 

Dan turns towards her, unable to make any words come to respond to her either. 

"He knows," Aaron says.

Justin still has an arm tight around him, but Aaron isn't struggling much anymore. He's sweaty, a sheen of it across his forehead, chest heaving. His eyes are cold, staring at Dan as Dan tries to look away and avoid the eye contact. 

"Dan?" Justin says, "come on man, help us out. What the hell happened?"

"I—" 

Thea moves over to him, touching his arm again and Dan glances down at her tiny, slim fingers against his coat. He still has his coat on, he still has his headphones around his neck and his shoes on his feet. How did this all happen so fast? 

"I just got in from work," Dan says, words all crammed up together, fast and unintelligible. "Aaron has been drinking, I think he's upset? It doesn't matter." 

Cassidy tries to catch his eye and Dan looks away, Thea's grip tightens. 

"It does matter," she says. 

"It was just a misunderstanding." 

Aaron scoffs. Justin is still holding him still but his grip doesn't look as tight. 

"A misunderstanding?" Justin repeats. 

"Yeah," Dan says.

"It wasn't," Aaron says, his voice still unnecessarily loud. "You know what you did." 

"What did he do?" Thea says, "you're a dick when you're drunk like this and you know it. Whatever he did I bet you deserved it." 

Aaron's eyes narrow. Dan doesn't want to be looking into his cold expression, but he's unable to turn away. The corner of Aaron's mouth crooks, just for a second. 

"He tried to kiss me, I was defending myself."

Justin relinquishes his grip. Dan expects Aaron to lunge, and he flinches, but Aaron stays still. What he's said doesn't catch up with Dan until Thea turns to him. 

"Dan?" She says, "did you?"

Dan takes a step away from all of them. Pain shoots up his side, dull and aching. He shakes his head, but it's too late for Thea and she turns away. 

"Why would he do that?" 

She's asking Aaron. Dan wants to believe it's because she's questioning his story, but it could just as easily be because Dan hasn't offered her a suitable answer. 

Blood rushes in his ears. It's moving too fast, the panic is rising in him and he wants to leave. If he can just get out maybe this will all go away. This can't be happening. It can't. 

He's tried so hard, he did everything he could think of to prevent this happening. But it was all for nothing. 

"Because," Aaron says, "he's in love with me." 

"In love with you?" 

It's Cassidy, from the doorway. She turns her head quickly between Dan and Aaron, back and forth. Behind Aaron, Justin is looking at Dan too and Thea has turned her whole body towards him. 

She's not touching his arm, Justin isn't holding Aaron back. They are on one side of the room and Dan is alone on the other. 

"Yeah," Aaron says. His eyes are still cold, his mouth a disgusted sneer. "Didn't you know? Dan is gay."

The moment after is blurry, and time moves in slow motion, and faster than Dan can ever remember it happening before. 

He doesn't wait for their reaction, he doesn't wait to hear them tell him all the things they will, for them to ask everything they're going to ask. He doesn't want to see the hurt, the betrayal, the disgust. He just wants to leave. 

His heart is hammering in his chest, he gulps down air as he pivots on his heel. The music thuds in the earphones still swinging from his neck and he's out of the door and onto the cold, dark street. 

The light of the house fades as the door slams behind him, the night engulfs him from head to toe as he runs down the passage between one house at the next. He leans on the wall at the end for a second, catching his breath with his palm against the textured, scratchy brick. 

He has nowhere to go, but he doesn't want to be here. The door to their house opens again and the light from it falls in a sharp line at the other end of the tunnel. 

Dan takes a breath, and runs.


	8. Chapter Eight

Dan walks for a couple of hours through a city that is waking up. He doesn't get far his feet carry him in circles around familiar streets without a direction, until his hands are red and cold, but he's sweating slightly under his coat. 

His phone dies when he turns down the street with a boarded up newsagent. The music cuts out abruptly and Dan stares down at the black screen, stabbing furiously at the button in a vain attempt to wake it back up. 

It's pointless. His only source of distraction from his own circling thoughts is gone. His feet hurt, his jaw aches where he's been clenching it, and there is only one place he wants to go. 

He gets back to the petrol station as Phil's shift ends and meets him coming through the staff door. 

"Dan?" Phil says. 

The smile on Phil's face makes him ache. He is happiness and sunshine, squinting in the bright light of the day that's giving Dan a headache. 

"Dan?" Phil says again, his tone different. 

He reaches Dan's side and catches him by the arm. Dan looks at Phil's long fingers on his sleeve and wishes he didn't feel the urge to pull away. 

"Are you alright?" 

Dan nods. His throat feels sore, breathing in cold air for hours has left it raw and his voice comes out croaky. 

"I'm... yeah?"

Phil's hands skate up along his arms, rubbing lightly along his biceps as if to warm him. 

Dan pulls away, looking over his shoulder as a car pulls onto the forecourt. 

"What happened? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Sorry," Dan says. 

As soon as Phil's hands are gone he wants them back. He wants to let Phil wrap him in a tight hug, if he wants to, to bury his head against the black coat with the pockets. Maybe the rainbow pin would press cooly against his forehead, maybe it would soothe the way his eyes are raw, his body tired. 

"Don't be," Phil assures him. His fingers flex, likes he wants to reach out again. 

Dan is learning that Phil is tactile. He touches, pushes, pulls, puts his fingers on Dan's sleeves or hip, or shoulder. Dan wants to be the kind of person that will let him, but he has solid evidence now of why that is a bad idea. 

"I'm fine," Dan says. 

Phil's head tips a fraction to the side as he surveys him. Blue eyes flitting from side to side as if to take in everything. 

"It's okay if you're not."

Dan bites down on his bottom lip, aborts a shrug halfway through and then lets his body sag, air escaping his lungs in a drawn-out sigh. 

"I can't go home," Dan says. "I don't even know what I'm doing here, I just kind of… I just remembered you saying it would be okay if I wanted to come back and—" 

His words stop with a broken sound and Dan refuses to believe he's going to cry in front of Phil.

He's ruining it. This whole morning has ruined everything good that came before. Butterflies in his stomach are squashed, the glee building up in his chest is now flat and dissipated. 

"Come on," Phil says. 

When Phil reaches out this time Dan makes an effort not to flinch. Phil only tugs on his sleeve once, dropping his hand away without forcing Dan to have to pull away under the glare of random passers-by. 

Dan follows him silently. They make their way up a street more alive with people than Dan is used to, and Dan puts his feet into the contours of Phil's shadow, shrunk away behind him as if Phil can protect him from whatever might come. 

It's not fair for Dan to ask Phil to do that, for Dan to be the burden that Phil has to deal with after a long shift. The guilt worms its way into Dan's brain and tightens its grip. 

They reach the bus stop. Dan remembers the last time they were here and how Phil had glinted out of the darkness and then followed him home, but right now that house feels impassable. He doesn't know how he's going to go back there, he can't face any of them again. What will they think? Will they believe Aaron? 

Dan shudders at the thought of it. Right now, he is the one following Phil home under the garish sunlight, finding patches of shadow and shade where he can, needing the silence. He follows Phil up the steps of the bus and drops coins into the metal slot. They jangle, a jarring clang of sound that rattles in Dan's head. 

Phil doesn't speak. He ushers Dan into a seat next to the window and is content to let Dan look out as the streets zip by, a bustling day and activity, people carried by their own thoughts and feelings, a world away. Distant and distracting. 

Dan doesn't want to be a part of if. Being a part of that world, that daylight, brings with it the damage that's been caused. He's learned to avoid the day, to stick to the night and solitude.

He glances at Phil as Phil reaches out to press the button on the green pole. An old muted buzz sounds at the front and Phil gets to his feet. Dan follows, weaving his way down to the door, matching Phil's footsteps. 

He isn't alone out here in the day, but he feels like he should be. 

Phil's building looms above them. Dan thinks he should say something to Phil, not just trail after him like a silent spectre, haunting his morning.

"Do you want a drink?" Phil asks, when he opens the door to his flat. 

Dan shivers under the warmth of the room. It's only a corridor, with abandoned shoes along one wall, closed doors save for the one at the end to the living room, propped open by a small cardboard box, and the one on the right that Dan now knows is the kitchen. 

"Dan?"

"Um, sure," Dan says.

Phil is shrugging out of his coat. He has his uniform on underneath, just like Dan does under his. He hangs it up on a hook near the door with a range of other pieces of outerwear, and holds a hand out for Dan's.

"I probably shouldn't stay long," Dan says.

"You look tired," Phil says. "You haven't slept?"

Dan shakes his head. 

"Take off your coat, Dan," Phil says, hand still out, palm up. "Stay."

Dan breathes, long and steadying, and then takes off his coat. He flinches as he moves, the muscle in his side twinging.

Phil's brow creases in the centre but he doesn't ask, he just takes Dan's coat and hangs it up next to his. Two black jackets side by side shouldn't be remarkable, but Dan gets stuck looking at them, chewing on his bottom lip. 

"No coffee," Phil says. "You need sleep. Tea?" 

Dan shrugs. He can't seem to find words, he should probably offer Phil some explanation for what happened, for why he's here, but every time he tries the words get stuck. He flashes back to the angry, snarling look on Aaron's face as Dan pushed him away, and then to the cool detachment, the calculatedly menacing way he'd told everyone the one thing Dan had been trying to keep secret.

He doesn't think Phil will judge him, if he knew. The images of Max's hand in Annie's hair, Noel's t-shirt, the rainbow pin on Phil's lapel, they all tumble over each other in Dan's memory and he has to tear his eyes away from the jackets and give up on thinking of how to explain.

Phil makes him tea. It is warm in Dan's hands and he sips it while Phil tells him that he doesn't really like tea but that he had to get in the habit of not drinking it now his shifts are at this time. 

Phil talks into the gaps, the spaces of silence that Dan can't hope to fill, and doesn't expect any contribution from Dan at all. He seems happy to hold up this interaction on his own.

Dan's blinks get longer as Phil talks. They're leaning against the kitchen counter, Phil's voice melodic and deep and Dan slumps down like he might sleep right here. There is a strip of yellow sunlight across the floor from the window. There's a pot with the scrubbing brush and washing up liquid in it perched on the windowsill, casting an oddly shaped silhouette on the tiles, overlapping Phil's feet. He's in socks, one red with stars and one blue and black check. His toes wiggle as he shifts his weight and Dan's head tips in their direction, just looking.

The house is quiet around them, Phil's housemates are nowhere to be seen and Phil had told him they were at work when he asked. 

It's possible Dan feels like he can relax. Nothing can get him here, Aaron isn't waiting around the corner, there are no judgments he needs to avoid, nothing to make him run. Phil, he realises, doesn't feel like something he needs to protect himself from.

He isn't sure when that happened.

"You're asleep on your feet," Phil says. 

"Hmm."

Dan does feel exhausted. He's been running on anger and adrenaline and fear, he's walked miles around the city, on no sleep, and here in this warm sun-bathed kitchen, everything has run out. 

"Come on," Phil says, for the second time that day, and Dan follows him.

Phil takes their mugs and puts them in the sink. He crosses the hall and opens a door that Dan has only ever seen closed, and reveals a messy, colourful bedroom. The double bed, pushed up under the window, has blue and green covers, twisted into a single mound right in the middle. 

A wardrobe stands at the end, and sunlight casts strips through a white blind, falling across a collage of photographs with happy, smiling faces blue tacked to the front of one door. 

The floor is littered with socks, a pair of shoes half under the bed, and a small pile of clothes including at least two of their uniform tops. 

"Sorry," Phil says, kicking the pile further under the bed, "I wasn't expecting company." 

"I can go," Dan says.

Phil turns, wiping the hair out of his eyes with the tips of his fingers and a flick of his head. "I thought you said you couldn't go home."

"I… can't."

"Then stay," Phil says. 

He shrugs as he says it, like the offer of refuge means nothing at all, like Dan deserves this amount of kindness. 

"I have pyjamas," Phil says, opening a drawer from a unit next to the door. There are DVDs and books on top, Stephen King and Pixar movies. 

He hands Dan a pile of soft clothing, some blue checked pyjama bottoms and a worn, white tshirt. 

"Seemed more your style than the rest," Phil smiles. 

Dan looks down at the bright colours in the drawer and offers Phil a small smile in return. 

He feels oddly detached. Like he's floating through this bit, going down the hall to change into clothes and wash his face. He folds up his uniform and carries it back in a little pile. 

Phil takes it from him when he returns, placing it on top of the chest of drawers.

"You can sleep in my bed," Phil says. "It's clean, I promise."

He's straightened out the pillows and duvet so that they are smoothed on the bed. 

"I can take the couch," Dan says. "I don't want to kick you out of your own bed "

"It's fine," Phil says. "I don't mind."

Phil picks up his own pyjamas and makes to leave the room. 

"Or…" Dan says. 

"What?"

"Well, I mean… we've shared a bed before."

"Oh. I wasn't sure if you'd want—" Phil nods, "okay. I'll just go…" 

While Phil gets changed, Dan slides in between Phil's cool sheets. They're soft and worn, and there is the lingering scent of Phil's shampoo. 

Phil comes back in after a few minutes. He's in colourful clothes that look just as soft as the ones Dan is wearing, as the sheets. His face is pink and he's got glasses on. The edges of his fringe are damp. 

He looks like comfort embodied, and he climbs into bed beside Dan, long limbs and warm skin. He takes his glasses off and leans over Dan to put them on the windowsill. Then he leans even closer, digging his hand down the side of the bed to pull up a charging cable. 

"Want to charge yours?" Phil says. 

Dan passes him his phone. It's clutched in his hand because he didn't know what else to do with it. It's hard to believe that it's still going. His headphones are still plugged in, the cord wrapped around the screen. On other nights when the world feels as horrible as it does today, he'd put on a playlist to lull him to sleep. 

Tonight, he doesn't even think that would work. 

Phil plugs his phone too, lining them both up on the windowsill next to each other, matching cables disappearing down the side of the bed. It strikes Dan once again that this is Phil's space, that he plugs his phone in there every night, he puts it on the ledge with his glasses next to it. Only tonight, Dan's is there too.

Phil pulls at the cord on the blinds and they shut, throwing the room into darkness, blocking out the day. Suddenly Dan can breathe a little easier. Then he lays on his back and keeps his distance.

Dan stares at the ceiling, aware of every twitch in his limbs, how far they are away from Phil's. He's tired, right down to his very bones, but he can't stop the thoughts in his head. 

"What do you when it feels like this?" Dan asks, whispers it to the ceiling. He's aware that it comes out of nowhere, but there isn't anything else he could say.

Phil shifts, turning on his side to look at Dan's profile. Dan daren't move. This doesn't feel like last time, he feels all the knowledge of everything that's happened now like a third person under the sheets. Aaron, running away, the kiss in the kitchen, the one at work, Phil texting him and telling him to come back, it's all on a loop over and over and it makes laying here in the manufactured darkness feels heavy and different.

"I don't know what it feels like," Phil says. 

"Like…" Dan breathes, it comes out shaky. He isn't going to cry, he's beyond the point of having the energy for it and his chest feels too hollow to produce enough sorrow. He's numb, closed off, deflated. "Like everything is wrong, and it won't get any better." 

He doesn't look at the expression on Phil's face because he doesn't know what he'll find. 

"Then, I try to remember that nothing is hopeless," Phil says.

"How?"

Phil rearranges. He puts one hand up underneath his pillow to cushion his head and he brings his legs up so that his knee grazes the outside of Dan's thigh. He's warm, and Dan doesn't want to pull away. 

"When I was little," Phil says, voice quiet and confessional, "I used to get really scared at night about… well, all sorts. Anyway, I'd go into my parents' room and stare at them until they woke up." 

Dan can't help but turn his head then, to look at him and the way his face lights up with the laugh he lets out.

"I'm not saying you should run home to your parents," Phil says. 

"Good," Dan says, "I don't think that would really… I'm too old." 

"Yeah," Phil shrugs, "I mean, still. Sometimes when the world feels like it's falling apart it's just nice not to be alone. And a cuddle never goes a miss." 

Dan definitely can't see himself crawling home to ask his mum for a cuddle. She might let him, but he doesn't think he has it in him to ask. Besides, she would almost definitely want an explanation and that he can't give her. 

"In the end they bought bunk beds and I shared a room with my brother," Phil carries on, "he wasn't very forthcoming with the cuddles, but it was just nice to have him there." 

Dan hums, thoughtfully. Most of his words are out of reach, his eyes fluttering closed. It is nice, having someone on the other side of a mattress, his weight evening out the tension, warmth collecting under the duvet. Even if they are joined by the third, silent, invisible person made up of everything that went before.

Dan thinks of Thea, of her visits when he wakes, or the way that she is sometimes there in his bed when he gets home. He wonders if she needs it just as much as he does. 

Either way, he hopes he hasn't lost her too. 

"I think I have to move out," Dan says. 

His eyes are closed, but he can hear Phil's breathing, knows he's there and still listening. 

"You don't have to decide that yet." 

"I can't go back," Dan says, shaking his head. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

Phil takes a breath. There's a pause while he thinks of something and Dan doesn't want to open his eyes in case he sees Phil regretting bringing him back here. 

"You can stay here for a bit," Phil says, finally.

"What?" 

Dan's eyes shoot open. What he finds when they do, is an earnest, open expression in Phil's eyes. 

"Stay," Phil repeats. "Until you figure out what to do, or you feel like you can go back."

"I… are you sure?"

Phil nods, his hair moving against the pillow. 

"Uh… I… shouldn't. Not for long," Dan says, "Or… just… I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything, not right now. But the offer is there, you're welcome here."

"I…" Dan's voice is shaking, and he has to bite down on his lower lip, fist a hand in the sheet beneath him to still himself. "Where did you even come from?" 

"Martyn used to tell me that I came from outer space," Phil grins, "my mum said it was a stork. But… I think I just come from the same place all people come from." 

"Not me," Dan says, "there's no way."

"You did," Phil says, "you're the same as everybody else. And also not."

"You're a strange person," Dan tells him. Overtired and delirious with it all. 

"Hence, outer space," Phil says. "But I mean it. You're just as deserving as everyone else, but you don't have to change who you are to suit them."

"I'll never be normal," Dan says. "I just… I want to be normal. Then none of this would have happened."

"Am I normal?" Phil asks. 

Dan can't stop what he says next. He has no filter, nothing to prevent the idiotic things he thinks sometimes from tumbling out of his mouth. 

"You're extraordinary."

Phil blinks. Dan must be a blur to him, and yet he seems to be looking so intently. 

"Normalness leads to sadness" Phil says, like a mantra.

"Normal can't be sad. Everyone else isn't as sad as me," Dan says.

"Everyone else is boring. You're different."

It's Dan's turn to blink at Phil and run out of things to say. They lapse into quiet, and eventually Phil closes his eyes, happy to let the silence take them. 

Dan knows kissing is still on the table, it's still a thing that exists as an option between them, but Phil hasn't made a move to do that, and he hasn't said any of those blunt, overt things he sometimes does. 

Dan is grateful. 

He does want to kiss Phil, probably, but that belongs in those happy moments, moments of butterflies and levity, and that feels too far away right now. It would be wrong to kiss Phil now, to mix that new thing with this old, gnarled thing like a lump in his throat.

Besides, Dan can't stop thinking. He's still scared, afraid of what happens when he wakes up.

"Phil," Dan whispers into the dark. "Are you still awake? 

"Hm?" 

"Can I… the world still feels like it's falling apart."

"Come here," Phil says. 

Phil lifts his arm, duvet stretching out over and above them. Dan turns, staring at the window, at the closed blinds and the world beyond. 

Phil slots his body along Dan's, chest to Dan's back. His breath is a comforting repetition on the nape of Dan's neck, and his arm comes around Dan's waist, squeezing gently.

"Everything is going to be fine," Phil says, into Dan's ear. 

Dan closes his eyes, and tries to believe him.


	9. Chapter Nine

The space under the duvet is too warm. Phil has rolled away from Dan and Dan wakes to the sight of his back rising and falling softly with the rhythm of his breathing. The room is still dark, but there is afternoon light peeking at the corners of the blinds, and Dan's bladder is insistent. 

Reluctantly, he peels back the duvet, cool air hitting his skin. He has to shimmy down the bed to get out, because he's between the wall and Phil. Phil rouses a little as Dan's move, and he breathes out a funny little sound through his nose before settling again. He's facing out into the room, hair in his eyes, lips parted ever so slightly. His face is lax with sleep, softer and younger. He looks lovely, Dan thinks. 

Which really is an odd thing to think about a sleeping person.

When he finally exits Phil's room, closing the door quietly, he finds the bathroom easily, and it is mercifully unoccupied. Dan isn't sure exactly what time it is, whether anyone came home while they were asleep, but he knows enough about living with housemates to keep a watchful eye out for them. 

In the bathroom, he doesn't turn the light on. It's dully bright in here, daylight at the window, but he doesn't need to see the events of this morning in the lines of his face just yet. He avoids the mirror. He contemplates a shower, but without clean clothes to change into there won't be much point. 

Realistically, he's just going to have to brave his own house again. He has work tonight, he has to get his shit together before then.

"Dan," says a voice behind him. 

Dan turns to find Noel at the other end of the hallway, near one of the other doors Dan hasn't been behind. The one that isn't the pink room. 

"Hi," Dan says. 

"How you doing?" 

He smiles easily. He isn't wearing make-up today, but his nails are still painted. He's wearing jogging bottoms and a black t-shirt with some kind of logo on it that might be a charity or an organisation of some sort, but that Dan doesn't recognise. His hair is pulled back on top of his head in a way that Dan usually associates with hipsters and smug assholes, but it works for him. It's like he's come home from work and thrown on comfortable clothes, but the rest of him is still ready for whatever it is he does for a living. 

He doesn't say anything about Dan being there, he doesn't ask if he slept in Phil's room, or imply that it would mean something if he had. He just smiles, like he's pleased to see Dan. 

"I'm… fine. Yeah," Dan says, "You." 

Noel nods, "I'm good. You want coffee?" 

Dan doesn't know if its the circles under his eyes that makes him offer, or just that he'd been on his way to do it anyway. Either way, Dan follows him into the kitchen. The windows are bigger here, and the day is in full force, throwing lines of sunshine across the linoleum. Dan can't help but stare at the patch of counter where Phil had kissed him. 

Where he'd said he'd still want to in the morning. 

Dan wonders if Phil still wants to. If he hasn't looked at all of this mess and wondered whether it is worth it. He'd been perfectly lovely last night, but Dan doesn't want to feed that soaring sensation of hope deep in the bottom of his stomach, because how much worse would it be if he gave into that only to have it all fall apart?

Noel puts on the kettle, and gently rattles around with cups and spoons and jars of coffee without forcing Dan into conversation. He seems content to let the silence linger and Dan is far too awkward to think of anything to fill it with. 

"Should I make one for Phil?" Noel asks. 

"Oh, uhh." 

Dan feels a creeping heat on the back of his neck. The question feels strangely intimate, casual expectation that Dan is aware of Phil's state of wakefulness or not suggests… well, Dan doesn't know what it suggests. But Noel isn't judging, he doesn't have any undertone to his voice. 

"I'll make it," Noel says, "if he wakes up he can come get it." 

The third cup of coffee sits on the counter, Dan moving his eyes to it every few seconds. There's more silence as they sip their drinks. Noel makes coffee as strong as he makes his vodka, it would seem, and the caffeine hits Dan like a warm trickle through his blood stream, charging him up from the inside out. 

"Thanks," Dan tells him. 

Noel affects a nonchalant shrug and that easy smile, and Dan believes it when he says it isn't a problem. 

"Are you with us for a while?" Noel says. 

It strikes Dan as an odd question, and it must show on his face because Noel follows it up quickly. He drums his painted nails on the counter top, right next to the steaming mug waiting for Phil. 

"I'm staying in Max's room currently," Noel says, "they took me in."

"You don't live here?" 

"No. It's just temporary. They're good like that, Max and Annie. And Phil… they're good people." 

"Yeah," Dan says, "I… they are." 

"It was tricky for me back home, it got impossible really, but… that's why I said you were always welcome here. At the party. Because… you are, you know? That's who they are." 

Dan doesn't like the idea of being just another sad case Phil is taking in off the street, but he can't deny that there is something comforting about knowing that the others would be just as on board with it. 

"Phil… he said that I could stay," Dan says, "for a bit." 

"That's great, it will be good to have you." 

He reaches out and presses his warm hand briefly to Dan's bicep, quick like a friendly pat. Dan can't get used to the way people touch so casually, so frequently, he's so used to existing in a bubble where everyone is at arm's length, that his skin feel touch-starved; half desperate for it, half wanting to run away. 

"Thanks," Dan says. 

They sip their coffee some more, and Dan blinks at the mug on the side. Noel is telling him about something that happened at work, apparently he works in an office doing data entry, which is mostly boring according to him, but it involves inputting things people write on forms for housing applications and apparently, some of the things they write are really funny. 

"It can be hilarious," Noel says, "But also… some of the situations are kinda sad." 

"I can imagine." 

"Hm. I like to think I'm helping them, in some way, but sometimes I feel like I'm just playing my part in a giant machine designed to keep people where they are, you know? Like, the world is stacked against so many of us for stupid reasons." 

"We're all part of the machine," Dan says, "I mean… there are very few ways to live outside of it without disrupting everything. If I think about it too much I start really hating myself for buying into it all, but then I never do anything about it." 

"Me either," Noel shrugs, "Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to live by all of society's bullshit? But then… it would be nicer still if society was better." 

"Not sure I do anything to help with that, either," Dan says. 

"I sometimes volunteer on an LGBT crisis hotline," Noel says. "We're always looking for volunteers if you ever want to get involved." 

Dan blinks at him. His mouth parts, and his fingers wrap tightly around his mug. Is it written on his forehead? Why does everything circle back to those four letters, to the need for answers. 

"Or not," Noel says, laughing gently, "Don't mind me. I'm always trying to recruit people."

"No, it's… I don't think I'd be able to help anyone. I'm not… what do you even say to people?" 

"Mostly I listen," Noel says. "Sometimes people just want someone to talk to, and once they start talking they… I think it can be really powerful to speak your truth, even if it's just to one person. People keeping it in all the time, pushing it all down, it starts to fester. And carrying that around is exhausting." 

Dan feels his eyes prickle, the pressure building under the bridge of his nose. He clears his throat once, twice, and tries to stand a little taller, push his shoulders back. 

"I'll think about it," he says. He doesn't know whether he's talking about the volunteering opportunity, or something else. 

"Great." 

Dan still has half a mug of coffee left, and he can see the steam starting to slow on the one on the counter. Phil still isn't up yet. 

"I can, uh, I can take Phil's coffee to him," Dan says. 

There isn't anything particularly knowing in Noel's expression as he hands Dan the mug, but a tiny smile tugs at the corner of his mouth and Dan tries mostly to ignore it. 

"See you around," Noel says. 

"Sure," Dan says, "See you." 

Phil's room is still dark when he goes back in, and Phil has rolled over to face the window. His back is broad, the duvet slipped down so that Dan can see the rise of his shoulder blade through his t-shirt. He sighs. _Everything is going to be fine_, Phil had said. 

In the harsh light of the day it doesn't feel fine. It feels… distinctly not fine. The pressure is still there, building in his head, but he doesn't want all of it to break. He wants it to curl into a tiny ball he can push down, get rid of it, but he remembers Noel saying _carrying that around is exhausting_ and suddenly he very much wants to crawl back into the bed with Phil to see whether he might be nice enough to hold Dan again while he loses it. 

He doesn't though.

Instead, he reaches over Phil's sleeping form and retrieves his phone from the windowsill. 

**Dan:**can I pop by to pick up some things? is aaron there?

He doesn't know what Thea will make of the message, he doesn't really know what she's thinking about everything that happened. But she's the only person he can think to ask, he doesn't want to risk going home when Aaron is there.

Once the message is sent, he reaches out and presses a hand to Phil's shoulder. His body is sleep-warm and his t-shirt soft, and he snuffles awake with a small gasp. 

"I brought coffee," he says, when Phil rolls over to look at him. Phil doesn't respond immediately, he reaches out for his glasses and slides them onto his nose. He blinks at the sight of Dan and his face breaks into the widest smile Dan has seen yet. 

"This is the best way to wake up," Phil says, reaching out for his drink. 

"Bedside coffee service is my speciality," Dan says, no idea what on earth he's rambling about.

"That isn't what I meant." 

Dan feels his face flush, and he has to look away. 

"But I'll make note of your coffee delivery skills in my Dan-pedia." 

"Your… never mind. I'm not going to ask." 

Phil grins. His hair is a state, sticking up at the back, while his fringe is half pushed back of his face. Dan wonders what would happen if he leaned down and kissed him right now. Still, he doesn't. 

"I have to go," Dan says. 

Phil whips his head up. He shifts in the bed, like he might have been in the process of jumping out of it before he thought better of it. "Go?" 

"Home."

"I thought… Are you still going to stay?" 

Dan can't be sure, but he thinks he might be hearing a note of uncertainty in Phil's voice, framed by disappointment. 

"If… yeah," Dan says, "If that's alright?" 

Phi's arm moves slowly. It isn't a shock when he wraps his fingers around Dan's wrist, still warm from the heat of the ceramic, because Dan had seen it coming. Dan shivers anyway.

"Come back to bed?" 

They hold each other's gaze for just a second longer than would be normal under the circumstances, and it's heavy with implication. Dan could, maybe he wants to, because the room is dark and he wouldn't have to think about what it might look like in purple. 

But he shakes his head, turning his hand to squeeze at Phi's wrist in return. "I have to go," he says, "I have to go to work. I need to get my uniform and… I guess, some stuff. If I'm going to stay. 

They stay there, holding each other's wrists, until Phil finally relents. "Okay," he says. "I'll see you later anyway." 

Dan nods, slowly. "Yeah, I'm coming back." 

Phil throws back the duvet, coffee mug precariously balanced in his hand. He spills a little on the edge of the mattress and Dan smiles at his clumsiness. 

"I meant at work," Phil clarifies. 

"Oh," Dan says, shaking his head, "Yeah. Right. Work." 

Phil holds his arms out. Dan hesitates for a moment, unsure whether he's reading the situation incorrectly, but Phil stays there, eyebrows raised expectantly. Dan hooks a glance over his shoulder, finding he did in fact shut the door to the room, and then walks into the circle of Phil's embrace. 

Phil hugs him with both arms, the one with the coffee not quite as tight as the other, but it still feels warm, comforting. 

"Everything is going to be okay," he says, quiet into Dan's ear. His voice is deep, his breath tickles. Dan shivers. 

Dan doesn't want to pull away. He doesn't want to pick up the small pile of clothes from the top of the dresser and take them to the bathroom to get dressed. He doesn't want to come back to find Phil pulling a hoodie on over his pyjamas, looking for all the world like the best thing Dan has ever seen. 

He doesn't want to walk slowly to Phil's front door with him, and feel the tug of longing in his gut when Phil once again asks him to stay. 

"I can't," Dan says.

"I know that really," Phil assures him, "I'm just being selfish." 

"You're being…" Dan says, sighing, "You're being great." 

"Don't sound too happy about it." 

Dan shrugs. He opens the front door and steps out of reach lest he find himself hugging Phil again, following him back to the safety of his bedsheets. 

"I am," Dan says, "sorry. I swear I'm not usually so… you know, shitty, when people are trying to be nice to me." 

"You've got a lot going on," Phil says. 

Dan bites his lower lip and shove his hands in his pockets. He nods, because there's no use denying that he has stuff going on. He's just scared that as some point Phil is going to lose what seems to be his bottomless well of patience with Dan, and finally find it all too much. 

"I'll see you later," Phil says, mercifully saving Dan from having to think of something to say. 

"Yeah," Dan says, "See you later." 

Dan leaves Phil's apartment block and puts his headphones in once he's on the street. The playlist he picks has no significance, because even though he's kind of obsessive about having a soundtrack to his entire life, he doesn't know what selection of songs could possibly capture this bundle of emotions. 

Fear, and sadness, disappointment around what he has long considered an inevitable result of all of the stuff that happened with Aaron. But there's something else too, something deeper down, fluttering and timid, so so fragile that Dan doesn't dare think about it directly unless it flies away. Something, he thinks, like hope. 

**Thea:** He's not here. Can we talk when you get home? xx


	10. Chapter Ten

The door is black, paint flaking. There are scratches around the keyhole from years of students trying to unlock it with drunk, shaky hands. 

It isn't an imposing door in and of itself, but it stands between Dan and the unknown beyond and as such, it's the most intimidating thing he's been faced with in some time. 

Sunlight reflects off the glass panel and Dan blinks. 

There's no use hiding here in the tunnel between buildings. The promise of Phil's flat like a safe haven is close, but he just has to traverse the final hurdle of collecting his stuff. 

Aaron isn't there, Thea told him that he wasn't and yet Dan's palms feel sweaty, there is an anxious buzzing in his veins like his body is readying to flee. 

Without warning, the door to the house flies open and a bundle of red hair and skinny arms comes flying out of the door. 

"You just standing there staring is really creepy," Thea says. 

"Fuck Thea, you scared the shit out of me."

"You're the one lurking in a dark corner giving our house the death glare." 

Dan opens his mouth to respond, but as he does her face softens and she steps back inside the house. 

"Come on," she says, "I really do want to talk to you." 

Dan follows her in. The house is immediately familiar, obviously, but it also smacks of something other, and wrong. It's never been much of a comfort to him to come back here, but it's always been a place to go, somewhere that he had to rest his head. 

Now it feels like an alien fortress, like he's trespassing on land that no longer belongs to him. Where he isn't welcome. 

"God you look like a deer in headlights," Thea says. 

"Can you blame me?" 

Thea sighs and tugs on one of her curls. It stretches out for a second before springing back up into shape as if nothing had happened. Dan runs a hand through his own hair, aware that the job he did straightening it feels like it happened so long ago that he's shocked it's even attempting to remain that way. It curls in his nape, at his temples, trying desperately to become what it was before his meddling.

He's unravelling, his hair and clothes all rumpled and out of place. His whole body feels raw and disrupted, dragged through the last twelve hours with little care for what it was like on the other end.

"I'm not going to give you the third degree," Thea says. She folds herself into the couch, small and taking up barely any space as she bends her thin arms and legs into herself. 

She never sits properly, she's always angles and odd positions, folded and tucked away or else splayed out. 

"I just need to pick up some stuff," Dan says. 

"Why?" She frowns, hands clasped in her lap, "Are you leaving?" 

"Not..." Dan sighs, "I'm going to stay with a friend." 

"With Phil." It isn't a question. 

"Doesn't matter," Dan shrugs. 

Thea regards him for a moment. He's standing at the edge of the living room, looking in at her. He doesn't come any closer, doesn't sit down beside her or trap himself in the middle of the room. He just stands, and lets her look. 

"I'm not sure I really know what happened the other night." 

"Aaron was drunk," Dan says, having thought on the way over that sticking to a vague overview of the facts might be best, "things just got heated." 

"But he said--" 

Dan closes his eyes, and breathes. "I know." 

"Is it true?" 

Dan bites down on his lip. He feels unsteady, like the ground could drop out underneath him at any moment and the earth could swallow him whole. He can't say he wouldn't welcome it. 

"You don't owe me an explanation," Thea says, before her even attempts to answer, "If you don't want to tell me that's your choice I'm not... I don't want to force you. But we're friends, aren't we? I don't understand why you..." 

"Because," Dan says, "It isn't anyone's business." 

"No," Thea agrees. "It isn't. But Aaron said--" 

"I know what Aaron said," Dan says, his voice louder than he intends because it's all just bubbling up now. It's all just a swirl of Aaron-said and Dan-said except Dan isn't saying anything. He never does. Dan keeps himself to himself and doesn't push the boundaries of friendship any further than they need to be pushed because what if they don't stand up to the pressure. "I didn't try to kiss him." 

There is a beat of silence when Thea crosses her arms over her chest. She's got a tattoo on her right arm with delicate black lines, some kind of flower Dan can't name on sight and has never thought to ask about. Because it's personal, and he doesn't generally ask people about personal things. 

"Well obviously," Thea says. 

Dan's hand unfurls at his side, fingers aching. He hadn't realised he'd balled it into a tight fist until he lets it go. 

"What?" 

"Well you didn't think I believed that rubbish, did you?" 

"I--" 

"For God's sake Dan," Thea sighs, uncrossing her arms and dropping her legs down to the floor so that her foot connects with the carpet, a dull thud fills the space between them like a bassline. "We're friends. Sometimes it's like you don't get that, but we are. Maybe I should stop trying because it's like pulling teeth." 

Dan takes half a step forward. There's no reason for it, he doesn't intend to do anything as dramatic as swoop in to sit by her, but it does put him in the room. In the space where everything happened before. 

It wasn't a big enough incident to haunt him or anything, or at least he doesn't feel like it should be, but he's uncomfortable anyway. 

"We're friends," Dan says, aware of what little that is to offer after everything. Dan knows it isn't what she deserves, but he hadn't expected any of this, let alone such loyalty and devotion. He isn't sure he deserves it. 

"Then just--" she sighs, "Dan, I want you to be able to trust me."

"I do." 

"Do you?" 

Dan shrugs, "Yeah," he says, "Or, well, as much as I trust anyone." 

"Doesn't that get tiring? Going through life without trusting anyone?"

Dan shoves his hands in his pockets. He wraps his fingers around his phone and feels it vibrate once. Maybe it's Phil, maybe it's just a spam email coming in, he doesn't know. But it's something from the outside world, something reminding him that there are other things outside of this conversation and if he wanted to leave, he could. He doesn't have to stay here in this cramped space, he doesn't _have_ to tell Thea anything he doesn't want to. 

_People keeping it in all the time, pushing it all down, it starts to fester._

"Honestly?" he says, "yeah. It's exhausting."

Thea nods. She nods like she understands, not just like she's pitying him. "I don't want to be another person demanding stuff from you." 

Dan clears his throat, feeling tight above his vocal chords like his words will come out strangled. 

He doesn't know what situation Thea might have been in to make her understand all of this the way she does, but he's grateful for it. 

One day he'll ask, maybe, but not now. This isn't the time for that. 

"I can't," he says. "Not... I'm sorry." 

Thea deflates. She lifts her legs back underneath her body and curls in on herself again. "Okay," she says, but her voice is resigned, pulled up high like she's retreated somewhere. "That's fine." 

"I'm sorry." 

"Yeah," Thea says, "I know." 

Thea's toenails are green. The blue is gone and Dan wondered when that happened because he could swear they were blue only the other day. Too much has changed in too short a time and he feels like it's all out of control. 

"I'm sorry," he repeats. 

"Just get your stuff, Dan," she says, "you have work." 

Dan pulls out his phone to check the time. The vibration had been a spam email after all. He doesn't even register what it is before he swipes it away and locks the screen again. The world outside is still there, but all that means is that he has somewhere to run to.

He nods, because he does have to be at work. 

"You can still text me," he says. 

"Can I?" Thea says. 

"Yeah," Dan insists, "We're friends." 

Thea bites down on her bottom lip. She breathes in through her nose, tucks her hair behind her ear and squares her shoulders. She looks like she's accepted something. 

"We are," Thea says, "maybe one day you'll act like it." 

Dan finds that words don't come to respond to that. He isn't capable of it, nothing he can say can convey he desire for them truly to be friends, but that he doesn't feel safe in it. Nothing feels safe, just slippery and dangerous. 

What does it mean to give your affection to someone, to count on them always being there? It's pointless, risky, because losing them hurts and the loneliness afterwards is vast and unyielding. 

It's better not to try. 

So instead he goes to his room like he's told. He climbs the stairs and creeps past the closed door to Aaron's room because even though he knows that aaron isn't in there, the sight of it makes him careful anyway. 

When he reaches the top of the stairs, the weird light of the day coming in through his singular angled window, he sets about getting things ready for work.

He grabs his uniform, showers in the shared bathroom and dresses. He carefully straightens his hair again, putting himself back into order, wiping off everything that went before like he can somehow erase it. 

It doesn't quite work, but he feels a bit better afterwards anyway. 

Next he opens a bag and starts chucking in clothes, his toiletries. He takes the pictures down off his wall, discarding the one with Aaron in the waste paper bin, and sliding the ones of him and Thea, the one with his grandma, into the side of the bag, laying flat against the edge. 

He bundles his cables and a second pair of shoes on top of it all and pushes it all down so he can tug the zip closed. 

The bag is full, and as he looks up at the remnants of his room, he realises he's packed more than he intended. What is left behind are the bare bones of a bedroom, with little left behind to identify it as belonging to anyone in particular. 

The bag is full of the only things Dan needs to erase himself completely. His entire life fits in this small, tight container, and if he never comes back here it won't matter at all. 

He has been kidding himself that he ever made a home here. He's been biding time between his decision to leave university and what comes next, and although he still hasn't decided what that is, he's beginning to understand that this isn't the place to figure that out. 

It isn't his, it feels disconnected from him. 

He isn't going anywhere else that feels like him, he's leaving one borrowed space to stay in another and he still has no clue what will happen after, but at least he's doing something. 

For once.


	11. Chapter Eleven

The forecourt sits desolate, silent and starkly lit under its canopy. There's an oil stain over by the air pump, a crack running up the centre where the drain is, but otherwise it is completely deserted. 

It's been that way most of the night. 

Dan doesn't have his playlist on tonight. Something hadn't felt right about the regular list of songs playing in their familiar pattern. Perhaps it's time to put together something new.

Dan has been staring at the forecourt outside for his entire shift. Barely anyone has approached his window and while that has been a relief in terms on not having to interact with anyone, as far as distracting him from the tirade of thoughts in his head, it has been a bit of a disaster. 

For the first time in a long time, Dan has to check the clock to find out how long he has left on his shift. Half an hour. He's made it this far but the silence and the isolation is starting to get to him. 

It isn't that he wants to talk to anyone, it's just that the quiet and the thoughts in his own head are finding ways to drive him increasingly crazy, and the presence of another person might be what it takes to make it stop. 

He's not sure he's ever thought of wanting that before. Maybe he isn't really thinking about it now, because it isn't just anyone he wants, he knows exactly why he's counting down the minutes on the clock, why he's spent his time looking out of the window and across the forecourt instead of scrolling on his phone like he usually does.

As if Dan conjured him, Phil appears on the pavement beside the petrol station, and smiles as he meets Dan's eyes through the glass. Dan feels something in his chest unfurl, melt down to liquid and threaten to choke him, balled up as it is becoming in his throat. 

Phil doesn't come in, instead he takes the most direct and closest path and comes to the hatch. 

"Phil," Dan says, nonsensically. 

"Hi Dan." 

His hair is windswept, it's blowing in his eyes and he's blinking it out. His hand sweeps through his fringe, cheeks pink with the cold, the stark lights bouncing off his pale skin and Dan has never seen anything so beautiful. It's ridiculous how much relief he feels just from him being here, on the other side of some glass. His fingers twitch, but he tries to keep them still. 

"Hi." 

"How are you doing? How were things at home? I realised after you left that I should have offered to come with you, but you went before I had coffee and I am no good to anyone."

Dan shakes his head, smiling despite himself, the muscles in his cheeks feeling stiff like he hasn't used them in a while. 

"Don't be stupid, you don't have to babysit me." 

'I know," Phil says, "I just… I feel like you might have needed someone." 

Dan drums his fingers on the desk. It's still silent in the shop, but his world doesn't feel as empty as it had before. "My friends was there," he says. "Thea, she lives there too. She's… she's good." 

"Alright then."

Phil lingers outside. His hands hands shoved in the front pockets of his jeans, one of them at an awkward angle, wrist facing out. He still have the rainbow pin on his collar and its edges are glinting under the light, slightly nicked and uneven like it's been there for some time. 

"Are you coming in?" Dan asks, "or are you doing your shift from outside?" 

Phil laughs, rolling his eyes at himself before coming inside. 

"You don't have to wait," Phil says, hand in his jacket pocket now. He fishes out his jangling keyring and works one off of it. "Take my key, I'll come home after my shift. I've told the others and they're fine with it. Noel says you can take Max's room if you want, he is fine with the couch." 

"No," Dan says, "I don't want to kick anyone out. The couch is fine." 

"Well, the offer is there."

Dan chews on his lip, for a second, before meeting Phil's eyes. "Unless…"

"Unless what?" 

Dan shrugs. He takes the key from Phil and moves out from behind the counter. He fetches his bag and his coat while Phil settles in behind the till. 

"Go on," Phil says, when he emerges again. 

"It was stupid."

"I like stupid." 

Dan sighs, just once, all quick and hard and trying to settle himself into his decision. "Its nothing, I just thought since I stayed in your room the other night… but obviously you don't want me there all the time and I feel really selfish for even thinking that. You're really generous to let me stay with you, I honestly don't expect any more than that."

Phil is quiet for a second, and Dan holds his breath because he isn't sure what his response is going to be. 

He feels horrible for assuming Phil would want him there. He feels stupid for getting used to the idea in his head, and looking forward to him being there fo make the crazed thoughts Dan gets before he sleeps stay quiet. 

Dan still feels like the world is falling apart most of the time. 

"Oh, Dan." 

Dan isn't looking at him when he says it, terrified of what he might look like. But Phil is on his feet suddenly, and he's pulling Dan into a crushing hug, his arms so tight Dan has to take a deep breath and ease him away, just slightly. He doesn't let him go far though. 

"I just didn't want to assume," Phil says. "You were upset the other night, I didn't know whether you'd want to stay with me, if you'd be… I'd like you to." 

Dan has his arms around Phil too. His chest is rising and falling against him, and his chin is hooked over Phil's shoulder. He turns his face to inhale the scent of Phil's cologne at his neck. 

"I'd like that too." 

Phil lets him go finally, and Dan puts his hand in his pocket, curling his fingers around the key. 

"Go home," Phil says, "I'll see you there." 

Dan takes his bag and though it hurts to leave because he wants nothing more than to stay with Phil, he does as Phil says, and leaves. 

His mind is racing. He decides to walk a bit further and get the bus at a different stop, just to stretch his legs out in the early morning light and clear out some of the anxious leaden feeling lingering over him. 

It isn't a situation he ever wanted to be in. He had been scared of all of this for so long, of people wanting to know more and more and more until eventually they knew things he didn't want them to. Until they judged him. 

He can't get the look on Jordan and Cassidy's faces out of his mind. That shocked, sickened look they'd given him when Aaron said what he said, not to mention the snarled, vicious expression on Aaron's face. 

He's messed all of this up. He wants to talk to Thea and explain to her why it's so difficult but the truth is, he isn't really sure. He doesn't know what it is that makes his feel scared and judged whenever the subject of his sexuality comes up, but he's pretty sure it mostly comes down to not having the answers. 

He can't give them a pithy label, he can't tell them that he's got it all settled into his mind and that he is the way that he is and always has been, always will be. It isn't as straight forward as that, it isn't as simple as saying he's gay and just getting on with it. 

He knows he likes Phil. He knows he liked Aaron once upon a time too, but he had a girlfriend back home years ago and that hadn't felt any less real just because he thought about boys sometimes. It felt scary, sure, it felt like anything he did with her would somehow reveal everything he would keep secret and he had been scared that he wouldn't be able to enjoy it as much as the fantasies of something unknown in his head. 

So he didn't. He did what he always did, and didn't make a decision. He ran away from it, shoved it all down and moved away to to uni because that was the easier option. He didn't have anyone he could talk to then, there wasn't anyone who wanted to know him in the way that he was scared to be known. Maybe now there is. 

**Dan:** i'm sorry i am such a shit friend 

It isn't profound. It doesn't even encapsulate everything that he means, but he hopes that she'll understand it anyway.

He's almost to the next bus stop when she responds. 

**Thea:** You're not. You're just difficult to talk to sometimes. I'm sorry I keep pushing you though xx 

**Dan:** maybe i need pushing sometimes can we coffee tomorrow by the uni? i'll meet you after work

**Thea:** You won't be too tired?

**Dan:** it's fine 

**Thea:** Alright then, I'll see you there xx 

With that settled, Dan gets on the bus to Phil's flat, and lets himself in with the key. 

Luckily no one is around, because they all work normal hours and it is basically the middle of the morning. He gulps down a glass of water at the sink, the coldness of it refreshing him. 

He's tired, but his brain is alive and wired, going over and over what he might say to Thea, to Phil, to everyone. He knows that all of this needs a resolution, he just isn't sure what that is. 

Dan goes to Phil's room, to find that the pyjamas he had borrowed are folded up on top of the dresser. He puts his bag down on the floor and changes into those instead of his own because they still smell like the combination of Phil and him and it's comforting in a weird way. 

The duvet on Phil's bed is a little tidier this time, and the clothes that were on the floor have been cleaned. Phil hadn't intended for him to stay here, but he's tidied up anyway, like he thought there might be a possibility. 

Or maybe Phil is just usually a tidy person. Dan doesn't know enough about him to speculate, but he looks forward to finding out. 

Dan gets into bed, messing the duvet up just because he can and wondering how it will be when Phil gets home. He doesn't know if Phil usually goes to bed when he get home, because for all intents and purposes Phil just has an early start, but he can sleep on a regular schedule at night if he wants to. It's just Dan that's awake all night, Dan that spends his life in the dark. 

But it's sort of neat, he thinks, that Phil is asleep when Dan works, and Dan is alseep when Phil does. It means that all of their time awake they are, theoretically, free to spend time together. 

He doesn't know if that's what Phil wants, and the last thing he wants to do is to crowd him so much that Phil gets sick of him, but he can't deny that the thought of spending more time with Phil makes him feel warm and happy. 

That warmth and contented feeling sits with him, keeps him calm and carries him into sleep quicker than he thinks. 

It's hour later than he's woken by a bump, and opens his eyes to see Phil with one foot in the air, sans shoe. 

"Sorry," Phil says, sheepishly. 

Dan smiles, words still beyond him. He's mostly sure he's awake, but Phil also looks lovely and he can't be sure he isn't still dreaming. 

"I took my shoe off but it..." Phil laughs, "it ran away." 

Dan lifts his head to look at the floor and sure enough Phil's shoe is halfway across the room. 

"Try undoing your laces," Dan says. 

"Nah, leaving them means I can put them back on without tying them." 

Dan stretches, back popping, and sits up in the bed. "It literally takes two minutes." 

"Don't wanna." Phil takes his other shoe off by pulling it and it too launches across the room with a soft thud.

"Phil..." Dan says, "do you know how to tie your shoelaces?" 

"Yes," Phil says, pouting, "I'm just... not very good at it."

Dan brushes the corner of his mouth with two fingers and snorts softly through his nose. His cheeks ache again. 

"What?" Phil says. 

"I didn't say anything." 

"You're looking at me weird." 

Dan shifts his legs, crossing them in front of him like he used to when he was a kid. The duvet falls off of him and he's just in his pyjamas - well, Phil's pyjamas - but he doesn't feel self conscious. 

"Am I?" he says, perfectly aware that he probably is. 

"So, what?" 

Dan shrugs, "You're… you're kind of adorable." 

"Shut up!" Phil says, and he drops down on the bed in front of him, hip grazing Dan's kneecap. 

"I'm still asleep," Dan informs him, "you can't hold me to anything I say." 

"Do you need to go back to bed?" 

Dan thinks about trying. He pictures himself knowing Phil is in the next room and trying to sleep and knows immediately that it will be no good. 

"Nah," he says. "I'm good." 

"Was today okay?" 

Phil puts his hand on Dan's knee. He looks tired from work, but not tired of life in the way that Dan is sometimes, just worn out from a day of work. He's comfortable and the question doesn't feel like he's prying, more like he really wants to know. 

Dan wonders how many other people have asked him in much the same way, but he'd been unable to see it. 

"I told you it was." 

"Yeah," Phil says, "but that was then. You've slept on it." 

"Does that change things?" 

"Sometimes." 

Dan leans forward over his own lap, dropping his forehead against Phil's bicep. Phil immediately puts his hand on the back of Dan's hair and scratches at his scalp. 

"That bad?" Phil asks. 

Dan sighs, warm breath doubling back on him from the soft fabric of Phil's work shirt. "It's fine. I mean, it isn't because…" 

"You don't have to tell me." 

"I want to." 

Dan sits up. Phil looks at him gently, genuinely, like Dan really doesn't have to say anything he doesn't want to. And Dan's instinct is to take that out, to run away and hide and push it all down a bit further like he always does.

But then he remembers the little rainbow pin. He remembers Noel and him saying that people can't push things down forever and he just, he's tired. Tired of running, tired of the dark and the hiding. He doesn't want to do it anymore. 

"The other night… This guy I live with, he sort of, outed me." Dan bites down on the edge of his thumb nail and Phil doesn't interrupt. Even though it takes Dan ages to get the next sentence out. Phil waits. "I hadn't… Aaron. That's his name. At the beginning of the year, at a party, we kind of…." 

Phil winces, and Dan nods. 

"Yeah," Dan says, "Only, we both had too much to drink and Aaron isn't… I mean at least he says that he isn't. Then, I don't say I am either so who am I to judge, you know?" 

Phil doesn't reply. He still waits, waits and waits for Dan to gather his thoughts, to set the spirals of them in straighter lines as best he can before he carries on. 

"And they were all there. Cassidy and Justin, and Thea… you know Thea? She's probably my closest friend after you. She's the only one in that house that… like, she almost gets me, I think. Except, now I don't even know. Now she might hate me because I can't tell her things, I don't tell anyone anything. And Aaron has told me. He's told everyone that I am... and I don't even know if I am. I probably am. But that isn't for him to decide is it? He doesn't just get to tell everyone that. He doesn't get to be the one to tell everyone, to make them hate me. It's mine, isn't it? I should get to decide, shouldn't I?" 

"Yes," Phil says. 

Phil puts his hand back on Dan's knee, and Dan looks at the knobbly bits of his knuckles, the uneven, chewed part of his nails. He realises he's breathing too fast, his heart picking up speed. He has balled his hand into a fist at his side, duvet squashed between his fingers, but he uncurls them now and slides his hand on top of Phil's. 

"Sorry," he says. 

"Don't be, really. I get it." 

"Do you?" Dan shakes his head. 

Phil, with his rainbow pin and his cool, queer housemates taking in strays wherever they find them, he can't understand. 

"When I was at uni, I came out to my housemates. They were the first people I'd told because I thought, new city new me, right? No one here cares if I'm gay."

Dan looks up at he says it, because those words spoken so bluntly and loudly carry a kind of magic and Dan can't help but be stunned by it.

"And they didn't, they were all really cool with it actually. So cool that I got swept along by it, I dated and joined the society, I made a bunch of friends that were queer too, and I even joined one of those dating sites because I…" Phil looks shy at this part, his mouth a quiet sort of smile, "I wanted a date. I wasn't into all that casual stuff." 

"Oh." 

Dan knows he shouldn't get stuck on that part of the story, because the rest of it is important, he can tell. But Phil doesn't do casual, he wants to date. Or, at least, he did in uni. 

"Someone back home found the profile. And… I don't think they were trying to be horrible, they didn't see it as being something that was _mine_, you know? They just thought it was a bit of trivial gossip. Because, they didn't care. I didn't find that out until later, but they didn't. Even then, it still felt like it had been taken away from me. The decision." 

"Yeah." 

"Before I went back home, I got really scared. I didn't know how they were going to react. I didn't know how my old life and my new life were going to mesh together. I still don't. I'm still trying to… when I finally came back everyone was fine, but things still felt different. I moved in with these guys and it's great here, and I think most of what I'm feeling just had to do with getting older, I don't think it's to do with coming out, or being outed, but it still makes you… when something like that is taken out of your hands it can sometimes take a while to find your footing again. Like the rug has been pulled out, you know?"

"That... " Dan leans forward, he uncrosses his legs and pushes at Phil until Phil is on his back and Dan is laying close to him. Until Phil raises an arm and Dan can tuck himself under it. He can hear the steady thump-thump of Phil's heart under his ribcage. "I don't know how my life meshes with me," he says. "I don't have a life from before because all the friends I had back home are gone. I'm not sure I really decided to make some here they just sort of… happened." 

"Do people decide to make friends?" Phil asks, "in my experience you just meet people and get along and then, there they are." 

"No…" Dan says, "It isn't that easy to matter to people. You don't just… people don't just like me. I mean they like me fine, but I'm not… I'm not important." 

Phil's hand curves around Dan's body, landing in the small of his back. He splays his hand wide like he's trying to touch all of Dan that he can in one go and he squeezes, pushing their bodies closer together. "You're important," he says. "You're important to me. Do you think I just decided that one day? Do you think I walked into work and I thought, okay I'll become friends with that one." 

"You literally made it your quest." 

"Yes," Phil says, because I like to feel like I've earned things. But Dan… I didn't have a choice. You're important to me, whether I wanted you to be or not." 

Dan throws his arm over Phil's chest, he pushes his face into the fabric of Phil's shirt and he inhales. "Yeah," he says, "you're important to me too." 

Phil's other hand grazes the side of Dan's jaw, his neck. Dan tips his head up and suddenly Phil's eyes are closer than he thought they would be. Dan blinks, and then they are both leaning in. 

He knew kissing Phil was still something he wanted, he knew that he thought out it on and off through the last few days when he hadn't been kissing Phil, but he didn't know just how much he'd been craving it until it happens again. 

When it does, Dan feels like he might die. Like there is so much relief and joy in his chest that it will literally swell upside of him until he can no longer breathe. 

They kiss like Dan hasn't kissed anyone in a while. Like they are young and impulsive, like their old lives or their new lives don't matter at all because this is theirs. Feet on solid ground, lips against lips and hands against skin. LIke they are discovering all of this for the first time all over again. 

Dan loses track of how long it is. He couldn't care less. But eventually Phil pulls back and rests his forehead against Dan's. They are both breathing hard, Dan is further on top of Phil, one thigh sliding between his legs where he's hard, and he knows that Phil can feel how affected he is too against his hip. 

"I need to stop," Phil says. 

"Yeah?" 

"Mm, yes." 

"Why?" 

Phil smiles, "You know why." 

Dan shifts, pressing his hips minutely forward until Phil groans and tips his head back. 

"You're a menace." 

"Sorry," Dan says. "But I mean… we don't have to stop." 

"I'm trying to be a good guy," Phil says. 

"You're a good guy." 

Phil looks at him, leveling him with those blue eyes and that expression that means Dan is really precious but also really dumb. 

"You're staying at my house," Phil says. "You've been through a lot recently and you're not… You aren't a quest to me, Dan. This isn't an achievement I'm trying to collect. We can wait." 

Dan rolls away. He doesn't go far, just lays on his back next to Phil and twines their fingers together. "Damn," he says, "you're too good." 

"Yeah," Phil says, "I'm pretty annoyed about it too." 

Dan laughs, and Phil joins in, squeezing his hand. 

"I think…" Dan says, after a while. He says it to the expanse of Phil's ceiling, to the stripe of morning line along it peeking through the top of the blind. "I think I'm going to tell Thea tomorrow." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah," Dan says, "It's mine. I get to decide." 

Phil squeezes his hand one more time, "yeah," he says, "you do."


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jane got tipsy and then Rachel said I needed to update early

Phil is settling in for the evening as Dan leaves for work. 

"Do you have to go?" Phil asks. 

He's come to his room and he's sitting on the bed while Dan changes his shirt into his uniform. Dan would be self conscious except that Phil's eyes are tracking burning hot lines down his chest and he somehow forgets to feel anything but incredibly pleased about that. 

"What happened to being a good guy?" Dan asks. 

"I was wrong. I'm awful, I'm disgusting, now stay here so I can prove it to you."

Dan resolutely pulls his shirt over his head and tugs it down over his chest. Phil pouts. 

"Silly," Dan tells him, "I'm coming back later."

"But then I have to work. You'll be asleep when I get in." 

Dan grins, he snorts through his nose and then his whole face cracks into a smile that only Phil seems to be able to draw from him. 

"So wake me up." Dan takes a step forward, toward Phil, and Phil parts his knees so Dan can step between them. 

It feels so easy. To slide a hand into Phil's hair, to tip his head down as Phil tips his up, to press their lips together and open his mouth when Phil's tongue comes searching. It's easy, and lovely, and far too distracting. 

"Work," Dan says. 

"I still think you should stay. Why work in the middle of the night? We could be going to bed together right now." 

Dan raises an eyebrow. 

"I meant to sleep!" Phil says, hiding his face in Dan's belly. 

Dan strokes the hair on the back of Phil's head and down onto his nape, laughing all the while. "Sure you did."

"Seriously though," Phil says, letting him go, "do you like the night shift?" 

"Yes," Dan replies, and then, "no. I don't know."

Phil cocks his head and does that thing where he waits for Dan to get his thoughts in order. 

"It was a job," Dan says, "just a job after I dropped out of uni and I needed something so I didn't have to move back home. And I didn't mind the night shift because it's not like I was missing anything." 

"But you don't want to do it forever." 

"No. You know, I don't think I do."

Phil nods, "so what do you want to do." 

Dan steps away and leans down to pull on his shoes. "I don't know Phil. That's kind of like the million pound question, except there is no multiple choice because I don't even know what the options would be." 

"Okay," Phil shrugs, like it's easy. 

"I haven't been great with deciding those things historically," Dan explains. "I don't… I run away from things. If you hadn't noticed." 

Phil hums, then shakes his head, "everyone gets scared."

"Sure. But sooner or later.you have to stop running."

"Maybe." 

Phil stands up. He walks over to where Dan is standing and he folds his arms around him, kissing him soundly. 

"Don't go to work," he says. 

"I'm going to work," Dan tells him. 

Phil pouts, and Dan kisses it, laughing fondly at him. 

"I'll see you when we swap," Dan says, "but I can't stay, I'm meeting Thea after."

"But you'll be here when I get home?" 

"Yeah Phil, I'll be here when you get home." 

With that, and a little bit more delaying from Phil, Dan finally manages to leave for work. 

It's weird having to leave a bit earlier because he can't walk there anymore, but the day is still fading, the light dropping on the horizon so that the night can roll in thick and fast. The shops are closed, shutters down, and Dan is still alone on the pavement, the bus not yet rowdy enough with people coming back from nights out. 

He puts his playlist back on when he gets to work, and it ends a few minutes early like it always does. He still hasn't fixed that. And then he's sitting in the quiet waiting for Phil, who turns up dead on time, running in through the door a little breathless. 

"Chill," Dan says. 

"I overslept."

"Lazy."

Phil comes behind the counter and kisses him hello. It's odd, being kissed at work, but he likes it. 

"My pillow smelt like you and I dreamed I was having Dan cuddles." 

Dan smiles at him, and shakes his head. He gets down from the stool and gives it to Phil so he can log on to the till. 

"You were not there when I woke up." 

"Sorry to disappoint." 

"I will survive." Phil sighs dramatically, and Dan goes to the back room to fetch his coat. 

When he comes back into the shop, Phil is leaning over to the hatch, serving someone with bright red hair. 

"Thea," Dan says. 

"Hey." 

"What are you doing here?" 

"Figured I'd come meet you."

"It's really early," Dan says. 

"It was always gunna be early," she shrugs, "it's fine." 

Phil is blinking between them and Dan suddenly remembers himself. 

"This is Phil, he's… he works here." 

Phil, to his credit, doesn't give Dan a weird look for his hesitation, just holds his hand up in a static wave and says, "Hello Thea. I've heard a lot about you." 

"Wish I could say the same," she says, "but it's nice to meet you too." 

"We can go," Dan says, "I'm finished." 

Thea shrugs and moves away from the window and Dan looks at Phil for the span of a few eye blinks. 

"I gotta go," he says. 

"I'll see you later," Phil says. 

Dan hesitates, because although it isn't something he's been doing for long, the urge to kiss Phil goodbye is really strong. 

"Everything is going to be okay," Phil says, "you don't have to say anything you don't want to. It's your decision." 

"Yeah," Dan nods, going back out from behind the counter. "I know. And I want to, it's just kind of scary when it's staring you in the face." 

"I wish I had some advice for you," Phil says, "but I don't. Other than just… be honest. I guess." 

Phil isn't perfect. He's fallible, he doesn't have all of the answers Dan wants or needs, but he is there, he's patient and kind and sometimes that's all Dan needs. Maybe not a year ago, maybe a year ago he wouldn't have been ready for Phil's patience, or kindness, he'd have taken it as an easy thing to escape, run away before ever understanding what that kind of slow, gentle care could mean. 

"We'll see," Dan says. 

He pauses for another second, holds eye contact with Phil just long enough that they both know there would have been a kiss, and then he leaves.

Thea is stood at the edge of the building. She's got a thick coat on, acid wash jeans and doc martens, her hair is blowing in the wind. 

"Still want to get coffee?" She asks. 

"Do you?" 

"I've had coffee. But I could go for another." 

Dan puts his hands in his pockets and shrugs, "we could just walk," he says. 

Thea nods, leading the way out of the forecourt and turning left instead of right like Dan would usually go for the bus stop or the house. 

"You cleared out your room," Thea says. 

"Not intentionally. I just, I don't have a lot of stuff." 

"So you're not gone permanently?" 

Dan looks at the sky. It's not yet fully light out, but the day is making a valiant effort. 

"I'm trying to make an effort to be more like, honest," Dan says. 

"Right."

"And so I… I don't know, is the truth. I think when I made the decision to leave uni I just stopped making any other decisions. I didn't follow that through at all. I just started working at the garage and tried not to think about it." 

"You don't have to be at uni to live with us." 

"No," Dan agrees. He shakes his head, and he tries not to hunch his shoulders or fold himself inward. He turns them down another unfamiliar street. There's a row of houses all neatly stacked together, all joined. Their doors are mismatching colours, opening into the street without gardens. Each contains a family, a life, a whole world separate from his own, living and breathing and continuing. People have lives, they live them every day, the good and bad and the difficult, and Dan needs to start doing that too. "But I do need to be happy. I do need to start thinking about what's next and stop being so afraid."

Thea doesn't answer straight away. She tucks her hair behind her ear and bites her lip. 

"You can say whatever you want to say," Dan says. 

"Can I?" Thea says, "because I'm really afraid that one wrong move here and you'll go running. You're so difficult to be friends with sometimes, I'm not even sure that you want to be friends most of the time."

"I do-" 

"Right, but listen. You don't make space for me in your life. You stopped wanting to hang out with us, you just go to work and come home and stay in your room. I have to be there when you get back or wake you up in the morning just to spend time with you. And you don't talk about anything at all, I don't know anything about you really." 

Her voice is getting louder. It isn't an argument, she isn't shouting, but she is clearly upset. Dan hadn't realised she cared that much, that he was any way important to her at all. He had thought he was just a guy they adopted in first year and got stuck with. 

But more than that, she's demanding things of him, she's asking for things he just isn't sure he can give, or should at least have the choice about whether to give.

"It's my decision," he says, "if I don't want to share things you can't… friendship has to go both ways, Thea. It can't all be on your terms." 

Thea sighs. She pauses, for a second, and then nods. "You're right," she says, "you never have to tell me anything you don't want to. That isn't what I meant at all. It's just really difficult to want to be friends with someone, when they don't really want to be friends with you."

"I do want to be friends with you." 

"When have you ever told me that?" She asks, "when have you ever made the effort to do anything that shows me you want to be my friend?" 

"I didn't think you wanted to be friends with me!" 

Thea stops in the middle of the pavement. "Oh, Dan." 

Dan stops too, only a step ahead of her, and he turns back to face her. 

"I do want to be your friend, I really like you." 

"You're stuck with me." 

"If it was just that then I'd have given up a long time ago," she says. "But I haven't."

Dan shakes his head, she just doesn't understand. "But you might not always be. You might find something out you don't like and then you won't want to be my friend anymore." 

"So you don't tell me things, you don't tell anyone things, because you're scared they won't like it and they'll leave?" 

Dan nods, and then he has to blink his eyes and get rid of the emotion starting to well up there. He shifts his feet and looks out and the tidy row of houses instead of at Thea. "Maybe." 

"Friends don't do that," Thea says. 

Dan braces for the anger, for her telling him that he's crazy and she doesn't want to be friends with someone that hides things from her. He waits for her to leave. 

But she doesn't.

"I wouldn't stop being friends with you over something, you don't have to hide stuff from me. I'm not going anywhere." 

Dan is crying now, as much as he tells himself he isn't. 

"I want to tell you," Dan says. 

"Then you can," she says. "When you're ready. It's just nice to know that… that it isn't because you don't want me in your life. Sometimes you need to tell people that." 

Dan chokes out a laugh, "yeah, tell me about it." 

"Okay then."

Thea sets off again, but Dan doesn't move. He stays rooted to the spot because she's right, and Phil's right, and Noel is right. You can't push things down forever, sometimes you have to tell people things and know they aren't going to run away. 

"I'm gay," he says. 

Thea stops. It could be dramatic, except that she slightly stumbles over her feet and laughs at herself. Not at Dan though, she isn't laughing at him. 

She isn't angry or shocked or much of anything at all. She just turns to him and smiles and like Phil does, she waits for him to continue. 

Dan wonders if he has always been surrounded by this much patience, and feels awful that he hadn't noticed before now. 

"Or… queer or something. Gay is as good as anything else. I kind of hate labels." 

"Right."

"I hate labels and I hate that people use them to hate you, so I never wanted any part in them. But, yeah, not straight." 

"I hear you," Thea says. And then she walks over to him, slips her small arms around his body and hugs him as tightly as she can. He hugs her back, dropping his cheek onto the top of her head. 

She is smaller than him but it feels like she's holding him anyway. 

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

"I'm just sorry that Aaron did that to you the other night," she says. 

Dan closes his eyes, and sighs. "Yeah." 

"He shouldn't have done that."

"Probably not."

"Why did he?" 

Dan lets her go and they set off walking again. This time, going back to where they started, a little lighter, with the sun rising on the horizon. 

"That's not my story to tell," Dan says. 

Thea smiles, and nods like she gets it. Aaron might be angry and awful, but he doesn't deserve the same thing happening to him, Dan can't tell his truth any more than Aaron can tell Dan's. It belongs to him.

"What are you going to do now?" Thea asks. 

"I'm not sure yet," Dan says, "but I'm working on it." 

They continue walking, past the petrol station and the bus stop, and they don't go home yet. They just keep walking, and talking, and the sun slowly comes up.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the increase in rating to E - this chapter contains smut

Phil does wake Dan up when he gets in. Dan is sound asleep one minute, and then drifts out of it to a gentle hand in his hair and he sighs into it, pushes his head further into Phil's hand. 

"Curls," Phil says. 

It says something about just how much has been going on lately that Dan hasn't even thought about straightening his hair. He doesn't think hair can really be a metaphor and yet, here they are. 

He nods sleepily, his nose against the edge of the duvet and Phil sitting against his hip. Dan lifts tired arms and blindly tugs at Phil's shirt urging him downward. He tips his head up, mouth slightly parted, and Phil meets him eagerly, not seeming to care about how sleep-sour he must be, how languid his movement dare as he slips out of slumber. 

"Hm,' Dan hums as they part, and he finally opens his eyes.

"You're too much," Phil says, but he doesn't sound mad about it. He flops down beside Dan, close enough that he's using the same pillow and Dan can feel the warmth of him all down one side.

Dan rolls over, curling in to Phil's side, and Phil lifts an arm up for him like it's something he's been doing for years. Dan wonders, briefly, what Phil has been like with other people but he dismisses it before it has time to take root and drive him crazy. 

He looks at Phil's face in profile, the line of his cheeks, the ridge of his nose, even the faint barely-there lines on his forehead. It rustles something inside him, tugging on something Thea said, and Dan leans forward to bump on his lips messily on Phil's jaw. Phil smiles, and turns to look back at him. 

"Good shift?" Dan asks.

"Boring," Phil says. "How was it with Thea?" 

Dan shifts closer, throws an arm over Phil's chest and tucks his fingers under the hem of his shirt to feel the soft, warm skin of his hip. The bone there is prominent, and Dan runs his fingers over it lightly, over and over, until Phil shivers. He likes that, likes that he can make Phil tremble all over. 

"It was good," he says, "I told her." 

"Yeah?"

"Hm," Dan says, his hand moving on to the patch of hair leading under the waistband of Phil's trousers. It's soft, and an unmistakable reminder that Dan is in bed with a boy, touching him. 

Phil sucks in a breath and Dan feels his stomach jump under his hand. Dan isn't looking at him now, he's resting his head on Phil's chest and running his palm flat over the plane of Phil's stomach, fingertips on the edge of the button at his fly. A pained, whining noise happens in Phil's throat, so quiet it might not have been there at all. 

"You still a good guy, Phil?"

"I feel like— " Phil starts, but then Dan's fingernails flick against his zip, and he loses the words. 

"Yeah?" 

Dan knows he's being a tease, he knows that he's doing things so so slowly because he likes the way Phil's eyes look wide and uncontrolled, words beyond him. 

"I— " Phil tries again.

Dan tips his head to press his mouth to the open v at Phil's collar. He smells like the petrol station, and faintly salty with sweat, but also like Phil always does. 

Phil shifts beneath him and Dan grins against his skin. He can feel Phil's heart under his breastbone, and Dan too is trembling inside, nervous but determined.

"What do you feel, Phil?" 

There's that pained groan again and then Phil's hand is over Dan's, tugging him away from the diligent work of running his fingers over Phil's zip. 

"Wah?" Dan says, easing away, face suddenly hot with the shame that he might had gotten this all wrong.

"I feel," Phil says, squeezing Dan's fingers, "that you just had a big life event and that despite all the truly, truly filthy things in my head right now - and there are a lot - I think we probably need to slow down so I can check that you're doing this because you're on the same page as me."

"How filthy?" Dan asks. 

Phil rolls his eyes and lifts Dan's hand to his mouth, lips hot against his palm. "Dan."

"Fine." Dan rolls away just a bit, sliding his hand out of Phil's grip. Phil's arm stays around him and Dan isn't really mad. "There is such a thing as being too good."

"I'm not really," Phil says, "it's purely selfish. When I have sex with you, I don't want you thinking about anything else." 

Dan opens his mouth to respond but finds there are no words. Instead, he lays next to Phil with his mouth open, cheeks hot, and a million thoughts racing through his head. 

"Tell me about what happened with Thea," Phil says, "if you want to."

Dan can't keep up with the quick switch in conversation, still worked up and craving more of what was happening. He has to shake his head, clear his mind, before he can respond. 

"It was good," he says, "I… I didn't know how it would feel to finally say it."

Phil nods and Dan catches it in his peripheral. 

"I'm gay," Dan says, smiling around the words. 

"Hi gay," Phil smirks, "I'm—"

"No!" Dan moves quickly, pressing a hand to Phil's mouth and rolling on top of him, laughing as Phil yelps behind his palm."Don't you dare."

Phil's eyebrows move and he's laughing into Dan's skin. 

"That was supposed to me a serious moment," Dan tells him.

Phil eases Dan's hand away with one of his own, still chuckling. 

"Sorry," Phil says, not sounding sorry at all. 

"You're ridiculous," Dan tells him.

Phil puts a hand on the back of Dan's head and pulls him into a kiss. It gets heated all too quickly and Dan is breathing heavy, chest to chest with Phil, in a matter of seconds. He's aware that Phil said he wanted to hear about Dan's day first, to check he's okay, but they're both getting carried away. Dan eases back just half a second after Phil does, and it is torture. 

"I am fine," Dan tells him. "I thought I wouldn't be, I thought it would be this huge thing, but I don't… I'm just happy." 

Phil grins, his fingers still in the hair at the shape of Dan's neck, making him shiver. "I'm proud of you."

Phil shifts his legs, and Dan drops into the space between them. Their bodies are aligned and Dan can feel that he isn't the only one struggling to maintain control right now. 

Phil is proud of him, but more importantly he's proud of himself. 

"She said something else," Dan says. 

"Yeah?"

Dan runs a hand up Phil's arm, over his bicep. He drags his index finger over the rise of Phil's collarbone over his shirt, and then into the exposed dip at the hollow of his throat. Phil swallows and Dan can feel it. 

"She said that sometimes I don't tell people when they're important, or that I need to make it clearer when I want people around."

"Oh…" Phil's voice has dropped to a whisper, his eyes have fluttered shut as Dan's fingers skim over his Adam's apple, his pulsepoint.

"So, I don't know what you want," Dan says, "but I don't want there to be any doubt about how I feel about you." 

"And how… um, how is that?" 

Dan lifts his fingers and Phil's eyes open, finally concentrating.

"I like you," Dan says. "I like you so much that I don't want this to be a casual thing. I don't think you do either, but I'll be honest and say that I don't know, and usually when I don't know I avoid finding out in case I'm wrong. So, I'm really fucking scared right now." 

Dan is doing the scary thing. He hasn't taken a risk like this, never thought that putting himself out there, vulnerable and timid, was something he'd ever be able to do. But he's looking into Phil's eyes and he's thinking about the bold brashness of him, the blunt way he says things sometimes, and he wants to be able to do that too. 

"Don't be scared," Phil says. His fingers dip down onto Dan's neck, featherlike on his sensitive pulsepoint. "This isn't a casual thing." 

Dan feels choked with everything he might say after that and so he doesn't say any of it. Instead, he feels the way Phil's pulse is under his fingers, how his is under Phil's. They beat not in the same rhythm but at the same time, which Dan suspects might be more important. 

"I'm happy," Dan says again. 

"That's…" Phil swallows, and Dan feels the movement of his adams apple.He feels the minute shift of Phil's hips underneath him. "That's good." 

"Phil," Dan says, whispers, mouth a hairs' breadth from Phil's.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not thinking about anything else." 

Phil make a low, growling sort of sound and uses a hand on Dan's hip to roll them over. He lifts himself up and over, slotting himself between Dan's legs and while it isn't the smoothest movement, while thier legs get a bit tangled and Dan has to adjust his position on the bed so that they both don't go slamming into the wall, a sound is knocked out of him anyway, he still looks up at Phil breathless and expectant. 

Phil kisses him. It's slow and deep and different from the other kisses they've shared in a way that might be physical, but could equally just be an added layer of knowing that this is just one of many, there are still loads of kisses left. This isn't casual. 

Phil is just kissing him, pushing his hips down lightly, without too much insistence. He's waiting, Dan realises, not in a way that means he's hesitating, but one that means he's giving Dan space to put his thoughts in order. Like always does. 

Dan runs his hands down the curve of Phil's spine, slips them decisively under his shirt and tugs it upwards. "Can I?" Dan says. 

Phil sits up, and he helps Dan slide his shirt off his body, discarding it behind him to land on the floor out of sight. Dan's palms span across Phil's chest, mapping the soft patches of hair. Dan shivers, and Phil takes the edge of his shirt between forefinger and thumb and nudges it twice. 

Dan chuckles, and eases himself upward to take it off. Phil goes with him, straddling Dan's lap as Dan sits on the bed, losing sight of each other for only a second as Dan's shirt passes in front of his face. Once shirtless, Dan pulls Phil closer until they are chest to chest and sighs audibly at the skin-on-skin contact. 

"Fuck," Dan says. 

"Mm," Phil hums, mouthing down over Dan's jaw and onto his neck. 

Dan's hips jump, pressing his aching hard on into the taut fabric os Phil's jeans stretched across his ass, and Phil grinds down as his teeth graze underneath Dan's ear. 

"You're going to kill me," Dan informs him. 

"I hope not," Phil says, "I have things I wanna do." 

"Yeah?" Dan says. 

Their hips are moving more rhythmically now, Dan pushing up into Phil and Phil rocking back and forth so that he's pressing his own erection into Dan's stomach. They're both trapped by their trousers and Phil groans a little on a particularly well timed thrust. 

"I need—" Dan says. 

Phil nods, lifting his face to show his pink cheeks and wet lips where he's been kissing Dan. His eyes are round and slightly dazed and Dan loves that he's the one that caused it, that Phil might be that far gone just from a bit of shirtless kissing. 

"Yeah," Phil says. 

Phil says a lot of brilliant things, some silly ones and adorable ones and some things that make Dan feel like he can see inside his non-existent soul, but now he is beyond words. 

Dan's fingers are already fumbling at Phil's fly. Self-consciousness all but gone because of the way Phil is looking at him. No one could misunderstand that, even his own brain that likes to tell him how bad things are all the time, the voice in his head that insists everyone will hate him once they know him, Phil knows him, knows more than anyone maybe, and he's still looking at Dan like that. 

Dan takes over on his own jeans and Phil gets to work on his. They both unzip and ease their boxers down and then Phil is pulling out his cock, pink and shiny and beautiful and Dan has to breathe deep and steady himself because this is happening. 

"Wait," Dan says. 

Phil just nods, waiting as Dan leans back and pulls the cord on the side of the blinds. Daylight floods the room, painting it yellow-white and picking up how pale and beautiful Phil is. There are freckles on his shoulders, and Dan pushes his mouth to them as soon as he's back close enough. 

"D—" Phil says. 

He might have intended to say Dan's name, but Dan doesn't give him a chance because instead he pulls him into another kiss. He presses himself up against Phil, their bare cocks brushing so that Dan moans into Phil's mouth. 

Phil takes the initiative, because Dan is at a loss, wanting to touch Phil every all at once, put his mouth on all the places Phil has to offer. His runs his hands over the expanse of Phil's back, drags his tongue across the lightly textured skin of Phil's jaw where his stubble would be were it visible. There's another freckle there, Dan knows, and he can open his eyes and look at it in the bright sunshine. Phil is here, he is in the daylight with him, and he's telling Dan to keep going. 

Phil eases his hand between them, grasping at the wet head of Dan's cock. Dan whines, high and needy, and pushes himself into the circle of Phil's fingers. Phil nods, dislodging Dan's mouth from contact with his skin so Dan drops his forehead to Phil's and looks down at Phil's hand on his cock. Phil readjusts, lining his cock up with Dan's and wrapping his fingers around them both. Phil's fingers are long, but Dan's palms are wide and he links his hand with Phil's to cover the other side. Together, they create a tight, warm tunnel to thrust into, their shafts sliding together, sticky and slick with precum. 

"Phil," Dan says. 

"Yes." 

What Phil might be agreeing to doesn't matter, Dan only knows that he agrees too. He's here for anything and everything Phil will give him. But he knows it isn't going to extend beyond this for this first time. Not when he's wound up so tight he might come at any minute. 

It can wait. This isn't casual, they have all the time in the world for more. 

Dan braces his free hand on Phil's shoulder, digging his fingers in. He throws his head back, eyes tight shut as he thrusts his hips more and more erratically. He's aware of Phil thrusting too, the messy rhythm of it, delicious and heady, but he's too far gone, chasing his high as he pushes his cockhead into Phil's palm. 

"Come on," Phil says, urging him onward. 

Dan groans, his thighs going taut and his nails digging into the muscle of Phil's shoulder. He feels it pulse between them, a wet flood over his knuckles, and Phil works him through it when his own hand goes lax and uncoordinated. 

It's like relief when he comes down. Like something bubbling up and over, climbing up his throat to lodge in the back of it and Dan has to hide his face in the crook of Phil's neck and _breathe_. 

"Sorry," Dan pants, Phil still hard in their hands, now sticky with Dan's release. Phil is squeezing his hand gently, just offering some relief from the ache of it. 

"It's fine," Phil whispers. His other hand curls around Dan's arm, rubbing comfortingly against his bicep. 

Dan takes one more breath and then eases himself away. He bats Phil's hand out of the way and takes Phil into his own hand, lubes by his own come in a way that is somehow hotter for how filthy it feels. There is no denying that he's with a man, a gorgeous, broad, beautiful man who Dan adores so much not just for how attractive he is, for how well his cock fits into Dan's hand, but also because Phil's blue eyes feel like they look through to his core. 

"I want to make you come," Dan says.

"So make me come." 

Dan doesn't have too much experience with this, but he has enough, and he isn't nervous when he starts to move his hand. The expression on Phil's face, the way he bites down on his bottom lip and his brow quirks with the sheer pleasure of it, erases any trepidation Dan might have had. Experience or not, he can do this. Pleasuring Phil, making him feel good, its something he wants to do more than anything and he doesn't need a script for that. 

He just needs this; His hand on Phil's cock, an experimental twist of his wrist that punches Phil's breath out of him, the way Phil clings to him and moves his hips and says "yeah, yeah," under his breath. 

"Gunna—" Phil informs him, and Dan hums in response, urging him onward. 

When Phil comes he's beautiful. His face screws up and there's a low noise in his chest, but Dan can't stop watching it. He bucks in Dan's lap, and Dan moves his hand over his cock, going and going until there is nothing left and Phil slumps forward, sated and shivering. 

They are both warm, and sweaty, a bundle of too-long limbs and clothes they definitely shouldn't still be wearing. 

"Gunna have to move eventually," Dan says after a few minutes. 

Phil shakes his head, hair tickling Dan's ear. "Not moving ever." 

Dan laughs at him, thinking that he could probably live with it if they never hand to move but alas, the world awaits. There are still many hours before he has to go to work, but not enough for all the things he'd like to do. He wants to hold Phil close for as long as he'll let him. 

"Shower?" Phil says. 

"You go first," Dan tells him. 

Phil sits up again, running his hand through Dan's hair. "There is still time before the housemates get home," he says.

"Yeah?"

Phil grins, "Yeah." 

"Race you?"

"I'm literally on top of you." 

"I still fancy my chances." 

Phil moves too quickly, too gangly and clumsy, almost tripping as he dismounts from Dan's lap. 

"You idiot," Dan says, but it sounds far too much like he's saying something else. 

"I'm winning," Phil says. 

"If you say so." 

They are both laughing, and Phil is heading out of the door, Dan all ready to follow him. He stands up from the bed, muscles twinging, tired and aching happily. Before following Phil out of the room for something he definitely has no experience of but all the interest in discovering, he leans over to grab his phone where its plugged in. Joint showers deserve the best playlist. 

When he picks it up he notices he has a text message and his thumb is swiping to unlock it before he's really registered who it's from. Too happy and distracted to pay attention. When it opens, the world feels like it's dropped away from under his feet. He can hear the water running down the hall, and Phil is shuffling around the bathroom knocking over bottles of shampoo, but meanwhile Dan can't tear his eyes away from his phone. 

**Aaron:** Hey Dan, I would like a chance to talk to you if possible. Can we meet?


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Dan should probably feel bad about texting Thea to meet him at the bottom of the road, but the anxiety twists in his gut the closer he gets and so he doesn't, really. He'd left Phil at home and called in sick to work, knowing that he'd never be able to concentrate with Aaron's text hanging over him. Better to get it over with.

Phil had been suitably worried, and he made Dan promise to text him the minute he's done, or call him if something awful happens. Dan would have done that anyway, he thinks.

When Thea meets him she is wearing soft jogging bottoms and her hair is clipped back off her face. She doesn't have make up on, and although she is bundled into a coat she looks comfortable and relaxed.

It is dark on the street. A single street lamp casts an orange circle that Thea has to walk through to reach him, and there are wet patches of pavement where the light glints. 

“You could have come a bit closer,” Thea says. 

Dan is standing right on the end of the street, the spot where this road turns into the next. He raises his shoulders and drops them again, face as passive as he can make it. 

“He really does just want to talk,” Thea says, “you don’t have to be scared. He wouldn’t—“ 

“No,” Dan interrupts, “I’m not afraid he’s going to get violent or anything.” 

“Okay.” 

Dan didn’t expect Thea to stop being friends with Aaron, and he doesn’t know what conversations she might have had with him when Dan wasn’t here, but he can’t pretend it doesn’t sting a bit, her defending him. Something inside of him, a shallow, childish part, wants her to pick him, to take his side above all others and vilify Aaron for what he has done. 

But life doesn’t work like that. People aren’t good and evil, they are somewhere in the middle most of the time, and Dan knows that what Aaron did was wrong and hurtful, but it doesn’t mean he deserves to be shunned any more than Dan does. 

Dan doesn’t know if he can forgive him, exactly, but he can understand the way a person might act badly out of fear, might push people away who threaten to expose the hidden parts of themselves. 

It doesn’t make it right, but Dan can understand it. 

“Let’s go,” Thea says, leading the way up the street. 

Dan follows her, through the orange circle and back into the dark again. They walk through the tunnel between the houses, and then up to the black, flaking door that separates the world outside from the world in there. Dan takes a breath and steps into the kitchen. 

It looks much the same; a pile of dishes in the sink, a small tower of beer cans along the back wall, and when he turns into the living room the two couches are still at a right angle to each other, a small gap between them to squeeze through to reach the stairs. Above their heads he knows there is the bedroom with the purple light climbing its walls, and above that Dan’s own room that feels less and less like his the longer he is away.

On one of the sofas Aaron is sitting upright and perched on the edge of one warped cushion. His foot is tapping at the floor rhythmically, but it stops as soon as he sees Dan in the doorway. 

“Dan,” he says. 

Dan immediately feels that familiar dread clutch at his throat like icy fingers putting pressure on his windpipe. He chokes on the smile Aaron attempts and doesn’t return it. Thea walks easily into the room and sits on the other couch, gesturing for Dan to join her, but Dan’s feet are rooted to the spot. He can’t move any further into the room than he is already, limbs seized, his exit within sight should he need it, muscles poised to run. 

“Well this is awkward,” Thea notes, uselessly. 

Neither Dan nor Aaron laugh. Instead, they eye each other intently, backs up like circling animals. Dan puts his hands in his jacket pockets, pulls his shoulders back and up slightly, his mind wandering to how aware of all his limbs he is. He pictures himself tripping while trying to high tail it out of here should things go badly. He doesn’t want to be in this room, and energy fizzes down his veins, urging him out of the space where their last confrontation took place. Faced with Aaron, sitting on the couch, fingers folded in his lap but still taking up more real estate than he should, Dan can’t imagine staying, but he knows he wouldn’t do well at running away. 

And he’s come here to face him. He knew when he got the text message that avoiding it forever wasn’t a help to anyone. Not because he owes Aaron his forgiveness, especially if he doesn’t do anything to earn it, but because Dan has spent the majority of his life running away from things that are difficult, running away from confronting people or standing his ground and saying that he deserves better than the things they are offering. He doesn’t want to run away anymore. 

“Thanks for coming,” Aaron says. 

Dan nods, fingers pulled into fists on the inside of his coat. 

“I guess I owe you an apology for what happened last time.” 

Dan pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and casts a look at Thea who smiles warmly. He’s pleased to see that there doesn’t seem to be any expectation there, she isn’t waiting for him to apologise so that things can go back to normal. She’s here because Dan asked her to be, because when you ask people to support you, they generally do. 

Aaron doesn’t say anything else, and for some reason it is his silence, more than his words, that are the driving force behind Dan finally responding. 

“Are you going to, then?” 

Thea shifts in her seat at the tone of Dan’s voice. He knows his face is stony, the arch of his eyebrow more poignant that he’d really intends, but he thinks Aaron deserves the expression more than he deserves any other. Dan doesn’t let Thea’s body language sway him, he doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable but the thought that she might try to persuade him to go a bit easier is abhorrent. Aaron has his own issues, and Dan knows that his actions come from a place of fear and repression – the same way that his do sometimes – but understanding it doesn’t make it okay. 

“Going to what?” 

Dan huffs a breath, a cynical little laugh, rueful, like he expected Aaron to have that exact reaction. “Apologise.” 

“I just did.” 

“No.” Dan’s voice is wavering. His fingers go tight and aching in his pocket as he presses his fingertips into his palms, nails biting the skin. “You said I deserved an apology, that isn’t the same as actually being sorry.” 

“I… “ Aaron’s eyes dart over to Thea, and then narrow back in Dan’s direction. “You’re being ridiculous. I asked you here to talk about this, not to be attacked.” 

“_I’m_ attacking _you_?” Dan says, scoffing.

Aaron sits back against the cushions at that, his eyebrows raised, surprise rolling off him in waves. Dan hasn’t stood up before, hasn’t stayed firm in the face of his actions in the entire time that he’s known him. At first it was just because he felt so lucky that they deigned to be his friend, even though he felt unworthy of it. Then, it was because of the curled, twisted feelings in his gut when he looked at Aaron and how he knew he couldn’t deny his own desires. Then, after, it was because Aaron avoided his eye, or else got in his face and lied, and lied, and lied. 

He isn’t standing for it anymore. 

“All I ever wanted was to be your friend,” Dan said. 

“You wanted more than that,” Aaron spits. 

“Maybe,” Dan nods, “maybe once. But that feels like a hell of a long time ago now, and for the life of me I can’t think why.”

“So you admit it?” The corner of Aaron’s mouth dips in, sneering upward like he’s just won something vital. He hasn’t. 

“What?” Dan laughs, “that I’m gay? Sure. You told everyone anyway, even though it wasn’t your story to tell.” 

Aaron’s eyes go wide, more surprise banked there. His fingers splay on his thighs, digging into the fabric of his jeans slightly, like he’s worried what Dan finally being able to admit that might mean. 

Dan is shocked that the words came so easily. He owns them now, they belong to him and he gets to decide who he gives them to. He feels a surge of pride in his chest, a rush of self satisfaction that he says it without flinching, owns it, his truth, without shame.

Aaron should get to do the same.

“Good people don’t take the truth from someone,” Dan assures him, “People get to keep their own stories until they want to tell them. Or at least, that’s what should happen.” 

“You’re full of shit.”

Dan takes his hands out of his pockets and throws his head back, laughter escaping him. “Am I?” 

“What’s so funny?” 

Dan levels him with the kind of stare he wishes he’d been able to manage before. It isn’t hatred, closer to pity. “I think at one point I was,” Dan says. “I was full of lies and fear, telling myself the same kind of bullshit you probably do. Don’t worry, it’s still your truth Aaron, no one should take that from you regardless of what you do with other people’s.” 

Aaron shakes his head, casting panicked looks at Thea like she might be able to work it all out. Maybe she can, Dan doesn’t think he’s being subtle enough really, but he hasn’t said anything he shouldn’t. Despite it all, he doesn’t want to take the decision away from Aaron in the same way that Aaron took it away from him. Thea is watching them both, brows pulled tight so that a line appears between them. It’s a confusion Dan might have to clear up after this, but she isn’t saying anything for now. 

“It’s just such a cliché, Aaron,” Dan tells him. “_You're_ a cliché. To be so twisted up inside, to have it festered and toxic so that all you can do is lash out at other people, push them away and hide in the dark. You’re not the first to do it, you won’t be the last, but I hope— I really, truly do hope... that you learn to accept what it is you need to.”

He’s talking to himself too, he realises. He knows what it is to be so full of self-hatred that you push away anyone who gets close enough to see all the things you despise, so that maybe they won’t see them. He knows what it is to exist in the dark, and this feels like stepping out into the light. 

"I'm leaving now," Dan says. "And…" he smiles, incredulous at how this comes to him now, easy like the truth should be. "And I'm not coming back. Don't contact me again. I don't care if you look back on this one day and realise you were wrong, I don't care if you hate yourself for that. You get to live with it, like I have to live with my decisions." 

Aaron doesn't respond. He clings to his jeans and his expression is shocked and still, and Dan turns to Thea. 

"I'll see you soon," he tells her. "None of this means you have to pick a side." 

Thea's brow smoothes, her mouth flattens into a smile and she nods at him. "I'll see you really soon," she says. 

"Come hang out with me and Phil." 

Dan likes that. He likes Phil's name in this room, clearing it of what went before. This room was secrets and lies and torment, and now it is bravery and pride, and Dan offering his not-casual lover's time like it is his to give. He likes it a lot.

"Sure."

Thea stands, hugs him, all the while ignoring Aaron's stoic presence in the other couch as if he isn't there at all. 

He might as well not be, because he doesn't matter, he will have no impact on what comes after.

* * *

"And you just left?" Phil asks, later. Dan got back to the flat in time for Phil to be going to bed, and although he has an early start in the morning he's already got Dan shirtless and underneath him. Apparently, this is the perfect place to talk about Dan's day. 

He likes it, he realises, spending the day with Phil, doing the things he needs to, and then going to bed with Phil too. For the first time in a long time, Dan craves regular hours, wants daylight if it has Phil in it. 

"Yeah," Dan says, shivering as Phil's hand curls around his hip and his lips ghost over his pulse point. 

"I'm proud of you," Phil says. 

"Are you?" 

Phil nods, his hair tickling Dan's chin. "Hm, yes. I am." 

Dan smiles up at the ceiling and arches his neck to give Phil better access to the spot behind his ear. His breath is hot, goosebumps erupting on Dan's arms where they are looped over Phil's shoulders. 

He has one leg bent at the knee, Phil's body cradled in the bracket of his thighs. He is warm and pressed against him, and Dan is finding it difficult to concentrate on the conversation when Phil's mouth is doing such diligent work.

"I'm going to quit my job," Dan says. 

Phil pauses, and lifts his head to cock it at Dan, lips parted and pink. Dan laughs at him, because he hadn't really intended to say it, hadn't been planning it, but he knows that it's true, that he wants more of this. More of coffee with Thea at an hour when she isn't too tired for it, more of streets that are open and alive, more of day time and sunlight. More of Phil, more of a _life_.

"I know," Dan says, "but I think… I think I'm done with the night shift." 

"That's…" 

"I'll get another job," Dan says. 

"That isn't why I…" Phil shakes his head, his hair flying free and fluffy into his eyes. His shoulders are pale pale bare, freckled and creamy. "I'm not worried about that. You can stay here as long as you want."

"Thank you."

Phil grins, and he looks like something Dan wants to see for the rest of his life. Which feels like a bigger something than he had been aware of. 

"I need to move out," Dan says. 

"Oh…" 

Dan pulls him back closer, skin against skin, Phil's breath hot on his collarbone. 

"I love… being with you," Dan says. "And I want to keep doing this for… for as long as you will have me. But I also know that I could just stay here and make you the next thing I use to hide from everything else instead of making decisions and trying things out for myself. That's an awful lot of pressure to put on something as new as us." 

Phil sighs, "have you been talking to Noel? You sound all… reasonable." 

Dan laughs, rounded and easy, releasing everything he has. 

"Well, this reasonable person needs to find somewhere to live." 

Phil's teeth drag against Dan's skin, and Dan hums faintly, lifting his hips to meet the firm resistance of Phil's body. It's good like this, and he gets to keep having it, but he also gets to make decisions and take the harder road because he's been on the easy one too long. 

At least, he can in the morning. For now, he has other things to do. 

"Actually," Phil says, pausing so that dan groans from the torture of it, "I might have an idea."


	15. Epilogue

“You’re gunna fall over,” Dan says, placing his hand overtop of Phil’s on the strap of the bag. It’s heavy, and Dan takes the weight of it insistently until Phil lets go. 

“Am not.” 

Dan raises an eyebrow at him and Phil relinquishes the bag so he can concentrate on the box he has under one arm. 

“I don’t have that much stuff,” Dan says, “You don’t need to carry it all.” 

“Hey,” Thea says, walking past him, Noel not far behind her, “don’t knock it. That kind of stuff wears off after the honeymoon period. He'll be making you carry all of your own stuff before you know it.” 

Dan watches Phil’s face fall into a smile, and holds eye contact while he thinks about what the honeymoon period is and whether what happened that morning counts as just that. Is it really true that the shine could come off this after a while? They’re still so brand new but Dan can’t imagine being any less than they are. Phil’s expression says much the same, but Dan concludes – as he is with most things these days – that there is no use worrying about it right now. What will be will be, they’ll take it as it comes. 

“Quit eye fucking and help,” Noel says, “We’re doing all the work.” 

“You’re moving in too,” Dan tells him, turning his gaze away from Phil because although it isn't intentional, he can't deny there is some heat in it. "It's not all my stuff!" 

Dan lifts the bag in his hand a bit higher as if to demonstrate that he is indeed helping. Noel nudges Thea with his elbow and she follows him off down the hall to spread their meagre belongings around the empty flat. 

It has two bedrooms, the smallest kitchen with a sliding door that separates the living room from the two large tiles of standing space in front of the sink, and no furniture. There are no mismatched sofas or pink bedrooms, but it's somewhere Dan can call home and feel settled in for the foreseeable. 

"Remind me why you thought it was a good idea for us to live together?" Dan asks. 

"You and Noel are... " Phil shrugs, "You're similar. In a weird way." 

"Careful," Dan says, leaning over to bump his lips against Phil's jaw, "a boy could get jealous." 

He doesn't hook a look over his shoulder before he does it, and he doesn't feel any type of way when he turns back to find Thea is standing right there, watching them. 

They unpack the few belongings Noel and Dan have between them, and then order pizza. They sprawl on the living room floor, Dan's phone playing a soundtrack of completely new songs. He's deleted all of his old playlists, made new ones, and he looks forward to seeing what might come next. 

"So the new job," Thea says, the crust of one slice in her hand. 

"It's not a career or anything," Dan says, "but it'll do." 

"And you're not going to miss him at the petrol station?" She asks Phil. 

Phil shuffles closer to Dan, their legs crossed, knees overlapping. Casually affectionate, a hand on Dan's thigh, thumb rubbing small circles. 

"I will," Phil says, "but we'll see each other all the time. My flat isn't that far away." 

Dan laughs, loudly. 

"What?" Thea says, looking between them as Noel joins in. "What did I miss?" 

"His block of flats is across the courtyard outside," Dan explains, "past the fountain." 

"I don't know if I'm going to be alone here because he's there all the time, or if Phil will just be here eating my cereal," Noel says. 

"Both," Phil tells him, abandoning Dan's knee in favour of picking up another slice. 

"Ah well," Noel sighs, dramatically, "At least I'll see Dan at the hotline." 

"Hotline?" Thea asks. 

"LGBT Crisis line," Dan tells her. "I only just started volunteering. I'm still in training but… I think it could be good." 

"That's… that's really good, Dan." 

Dan nods, because he thinks that it _will_ be good. They say the same thing Noel did that time in Phil's kitchen, that sometimes people just want someone to listen. There is other stuff too, heavier stuff, stuff he's going to have to learn and get experience of, but he knows what it is to feel there is nowhere to go until just one person becomes the solace you need. Maybe he can be that for someone else, just once. He knows how much it meant to him.

"I think so," Dan says. 

"I'm proud of you," Phil tells him, and leans over to kiss him with pizza-greasy lips. Dan kisses him back anyway. 

The light at the window casts bright stripes across the living room floor. The playlist changes to the next song, all of them on shuffle because Dan doesn't need to know what happens next to know that he'll enjoy it. 

"Me too," Thea says. 

The room is silent for a minute, before Noel sighs and holds his hands up, "Fine. Me too. But I moved into a new flat today too so I don't get why everyone is proud of Dan all of a sudden." 

He says it with the kind of fond ribbing only a friend can give, and Thea assures him that she can be proud of him too, pinching his cheek so that it turns pink under the blue nail polish. 

It's odd that Thea and Noel have become such good friends. Or maybe it isn't. They are both people that seem to understand Dan, to have time for him, so the fact that they have the same time for each other shouldn't come as much of a surprise. 

Then there is Phil. Phil who smiles amidst the rest of the important people in his life, who fits there like no one else ever has, who makes Dan feel like tomorrow being a mystery isn't something to fear any more. 

Dan doesn't have to make the right decisions all the time, he just has to make them, to step out of the dark and live his life without fear. And so far, he thinks he's doing okay.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Some Other Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23343112) by [jestbee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee)


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